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Bob's World
10-31-2009, 04:02 PM
Over the past 8 years I have served in 3 separate 4-Star Headquarters (Army Staff, PACOM/SOCPAC, and SOCOM), and have always been amazed at the level of intel product that has been requested, expected, provided, accepted.

Invariably it has been very very tactical in nature. Even if they looked at a broad area, they still focus on and talk about very tactical intelligence. Not that this is bad information, but it does tend to draw senior leaders down into the weeds that they grew up in and are comfortable with (plus it is sexy and fun) as opposed to much larger perspectives and issues that are the turf that these respective commands really need to be focused upon.

So, here is my question: WHAT exactly is strategic intelligence? and why is it so rarely asked for, and even more rarely provided?

Some thoughts on this as I work on some projects in my lane:

1. What types of Competitors are associated with a problem, probably laid out in 3 tiers from those directly engaged, those 1 degree of separation away, and those 2 degrees of separation away.
a. Who are the state actors?
1. Nuclear States
2. Non-nuclear States
3. Failing States
4. Criminal States

b. Who are the non-state actors working within these states and what are their relationships to the same and each other?
1. Quasi-State Competitors (LH, Hamas, etc)
2. Non-State Competitiors (AQ, Exxon, Red Cross, etc)
3. Insurgent Competitors (Taliban, MILF, etc)
4. Dissident Competitors (Green Peace, Individuals)

c. Of all of these, what are there stated and implied interests, and where are there points of shared interests and conflicting interests (goes to opportunities, risks, and predicting likely respones to various COAs)

These are things I think about, but get the 1,000 yard stare when I ask the intel guys about the same. Does anyone else have thoughts on what "strategic intelligence" should be?

Entropy
10-31-2009, 05:31 PM
BW,

Good and timely post. I'll try to provide some detailed thoughts later when I have some more time.

In my experience (EUCOM, CENTCOM), "strategic intelligence" at that level is closely tied to the strategic warning function, which is usually under-resourced. Most intel people are forced into current intelligence to support the crisis du jour, so don't have much opportunity to research and examine the things you list. If you haven't already, I recommend you go talk to the people (or person) in the strategic warning shop and see what they have to say.

max161
10-31-2009, 06:46 PM
BW,

Good and timely post. I'll try to provide some detailed thoughts later when I have some more time.

In my experience (EUCOM, CENTCOM), "strategic intelligence" at that level is closely tied to the strategic warning function, which is usually under-resourced. Most intel people are forced into current intelligence to support the crisis du jour, so don't have much opportunity to research and examine the things you list. If you haven't already, I recommend you go talk to the people (or person) in the strategic warning shop and see what they have to say.

Don't know if this is true but I heard a statistic that during the Cold War 75% of our intelligence professionals were focused on long term analysis with 25% on current intelligence production. However, in the post Cold War World the percentages are supposedly reversed. While those stats may be an exaggeration I would bet the concept is illustrative.

Part of the "problem" is the huge amount of information available and the proliferation of electronic media (both of the electronic storage kind but also of the broadcast kind - e.g., 24 hour news cycles). The real problem we have is when leaders say that they do not want to hear about it first on CNN or read about it first in the Washington Post. This drives our intel focus to current ops reporting so they do not get "scooped" by the news media. Again, this may be an exaggeration but I also think it is instructive. We need intel analysis that is useful not just immediately for targeting (the sexy stuff that Bob means, I think) but to allow for sound strategy development and effective campaign planning. We have to stop "chasing the shiny thing" (and there are good intelligence organizations that can do the targeting piece - but our theater level HQ, services, and national level leaders need good, thorough and useful analysis.

Dave

Bob's World
10-31-2009, 08:59 PM
As Dave points out, we had a better balance of our approach to intel during the Cold War. Personally, I attribute much of this to everyone having a better grasp on what it was we were trying to do. The Soviets were a state like us, so we could mirrror image in large part and figure out what might most likely deter or provoke them.

AQ, on the other hand, is not like us at all. Therefore we have necked it down to a simple "We must capture or kill them as they cannot be deterred."

So what comes first, the proverbial chicken or the egg. Will once we achieve greater strategic understanding of this new threat, played in this new post cold war playing field/rules, we will be better able to focus our strategic intelliegence?

Or,

Will the intel community step up to the challenge that they cannot simply provide weather and threat info, and provide the insights that help senior leaders develop effective strategies for these new threats in this new playing field with new rules??

Intel guys, I'm asking. Seriously.

I will be sitting down with our guys and having this same conversation next week, so here is your chance to influence that conversation. I don't know what the right answer is, but I know what we've been doing isn't it.

Jedburgh
10-31-2009, 09:30 PM
I concur with Entropy's statement about the neglect of strategic I&W in the COE. But ultimately, the shape of intelligence work is driven by consumer demand - Max's comment about Cold War intel reflects the perspective at the time that we had a (relatively) well understood adversary, and at the national command level consumers were focused on identifying their global strategic moves with regards to resources and positioning with enough lead time so that action could be initiated. Cold War intelligence consumers demanded accurate strategic warning intelligence.

Even then, there were often substantial issues and problems with strategic intelligence in general, and I&W in particular. Grabo's Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning (http://www.ndic.edu/press/5671.htm) remains the classic read in that context.

As you state, today's environment is very different. The focus too often tends to be down in the weeds, and everyone is a tactical analyst, looking for the next attack and the HVT of the week.

However, I don't believe it is a matter of the IC "stepping up to the challenge", but rather one of the consumer being educated on the necessity of true strategic focus. Without real consumer demand, the IC will not effectively resource or focus on strategic I&W in a manner in which we seemingly agree is a practical necessity. In this context, resource and focus also pertains to the fundamental building blocks of competence - training and mentoring analysts to effectively perform this type of task. The longer that true strategic I&W is relegated to the sidelines, the fewer people we end up with who are competent at the task and the harder it will be to rebuild the capability. This is a problem that can only be truly fixed at the most senior levels.

davidbfpo
10-31-2009, 09:49 PM
Strategic intelligence like other types of intelligence can be a "leap in the dark" and as long as those involved as consumers and providers understand that is a first. Some "insiders" even suggest educating the consumers, the politicians; hardly an easy task assuming agreement.

Is strategic intelligence 'Driving a car by looking out of the rear window only', a pertinent point made by an insider who looks ahead. We do need to think a lot harder.

The UK prides itself on the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC, a central co-ordination function); see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Intelligence_Committee_(United_Kingdom) and the official site: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/security_and_intelligence/community/central_intelligence_machinery/joint_intelligence_committee.aspx . A ppt is on: http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/Dr_Michael_Goodman.pdf

Mirroring BW's comments a Whitehall "insider" recently commentedin a speech:
JIC was very bad at predicting the onset of crisis; it was very good at predicting the course of a crisis. And called for the involvement of outsiders to get real innovation, citing the Double Cross counter-intelligence success in WW2 reliance on Oxbridge brain power. A lot depends on the method used to follow history; a better method was not events but the broad impact of technological advances e.g. radio and direction-finding.

UK intelligence historians often refer to the 1982 Nicoll Report as seminal in describing how faulty intelligence assessment is; not fully in the public domain, but this helps: http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/generalconference/pisa/papers/PP1729.pdf Behind a 'pay wall' is this: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a782893438 which has a redacted copy of the report.

The role of analysts is covered by: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no-4/teaching-intelligence-analysts-in-the-uk.html

This point reminds me of the value given to HUMINT in the past thirty years has varied, often with a preference for other sources (SIGINT, IMINT etc). I have seen the use of low grade human sources almost disappear in LE, in preference use is made of the directed, paid informant on priority tasks.

Who would have thought the UK, let alone others, would have 9k troops in Afghanistan today? After all we left South Asia independent in 1947 and had kept out of Afghanistan as much as possible for a long time.

Judgement is what the consumer seeks in intelligence & warning and often that means saying what is going wrong. Judgement today depends on relationships, situational awareness, many other factors and not as most analysts I know prefer just information.

Bob's World
10-31-2009, 10:08 PM
David,

I suspect that the national interest that the UK is servicing in AFG today, is the one of sustaining a good relationship with the US. We've put a lot of pressure on good friends, and it is wearing.

Good point though that it is up to senior leaders to elevate their sights, but I will not use that bit of reality to take the pressure off of the intel guys to be a little proactive...

davidbfpo
10-31-2009, 10:37 PM
A useful article, from the CIA viewpoint and asking all the right questions in 2007 is: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol51no2/the-state-of-strategic-intelligence.html

davidbfpo

MikeF
10-31-2009, 10:58 PM
Sir, your approach sounds like common sense to me.

I assumed a lot of things the last eight years. As I've been allowed to see more "behind the curtain," I return more disillusioned.

My answer is to start firing folks. That is one way to stir up a bureaucracy.

Keep at where you're headed and let us know what you find.

Mike

Rex Brynen
10-31-2009, 11:17 PM
I strongly suspect that perspectives on this very much depend on where one sits, or which shop one works in. I also suspect there is also a lack of consensus as to what strategic intel looks like, what time frames it ought to address, and whether it is actually much use. (I can think of a number of folks who would argue that, warning aside, it is actually not very useful at all.)

I can't comment on the down-in-the-weeds immediate threat material because I don't dealt with it. There is, however, a massive amount of medium term assessment (6-12 months), which addresses the full range of significant political, security, socioeconomic, ideological, and other trends. It is also typically pretty good in terms of accuracy--one recent unclassified calibration study of Canadian intel product found a 90%+ predictive accuracy rate.

In my experience, although this stuff is good building-block material for broader strategic planning, policy-makers rarely use it in that way, nor do they want product that looks much beyond the medium term, nor are they banging down anyone's door demanding strategic intel product.

slapout9
10-31-2009, 11:43 PM
I would think that for Intelligence to be Strategic it would need to be that information to be collected in support of some Strategy. Or more important in support of some Grand Strategy, which during the Cold War dealt partially with containment but also with insuring that our internal economic and social conditions were sound and we were prospering as a nation in order to avoid war.

As I mentioned earlier on another thread one of the first houses my parents bought was totally electric because our future plan (as a Nation)was to build atomic power plants to power our future electictronics....Our Electric future as it was called and was part of the marketing plan at the housing development.

I have not seen anything close to any type of National Plan since then, exception was Carter's plan to reduce our dependence on foreign Oil, which was rescinded by Regan and we have been going down hill ever since.

Sort of a ramble but my point is before we start to collect Intelligence maybe we should develop a National Strategy First which would include an Energy Policy of the highest priority.

Other than that you are going to end up with an ever growing list of motivated targets looking for opportunities.

Jedburgh
11-01-2009, 12:03 AM
...My answer is to start firing folks. That is one way to stir up a bureaucracy....
I wholeheartedly agree with you. But my experience over the past couple of decades is that it is far easier said than done. The old adage #### up, move up I've seen function in the intel world so often its painful.

....policy-makers rarely use it in that way, nor do they want product that looks much beyond the medium term, nor are they banging down anyone's door demanding strategic intel product....
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Bob isn't just talking about civilian policy-makers, but also senior military planners and decision-makers. Unfortunately, (but perhaps Bob has a different perspective) I also don't see senior military leaders banging down the intel shop's door demanding strategic product in the context of this discussion.

...I will not use that bit of reality to take the pressure off of the intel guys to be a little proactive...
It all comes down to leadership. By all means come down hard on the commander/supervisor/manager of the intel domain that supports you. State clearly what you want, why you want it, and why current production is failing to meet your needs. Put it in writing and CC the appropriate people. The analysts doing the grunt work will only be proactive and produce at a level beyond what exists in current requests and tasks if their leadership resources and incentivizes that sort of production.

MikeF
11-01-2009, 12:19 AM
COL Jones' points. They are important, but I get excited when Jedburgh steps outside the norm to comment. His insight are often very informative. As for me, y'all will realize that I use this forum to talk about things that I can't typically do in real life.


I wholeheartedly agree with you. But my experience over the past couple of decades is that it is far easier said than done. The old adage #### up, move up I've seen function in the intel world so often its painful.

Tom and I had this discussion earlier in conversations about intelligence. Here's the worst example that I endured wrt manuever,

"Mike, I'm going to send you to x place to un#### y battalion."

"Sir, I'm just a company commander."

"Mike, I know, but you can handle it."

"Roger, sir."


Mike

Tom Odom
11-01-2009, 07:32 AM
There was a definitive period in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War--when the Berlin wall came down--and all the old parameters seemed to vaporize leaving leaders--both operator and intelligence--uncomfortable in the extreme with the changes. In writing the forward to my memoirs, GEN (ret) Denny Reimer chose to focus on that period.

The realization that suddenly the US did not have huge data banks of information and years of looking at it when it came to dealing with emerging crises in the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East was earth shattering to many. Consider also that the same elements in the strategic community that had built the huge apparatus to study the Soviets then sought to rob the capabilities watching the rest of the world to meet the challenge of the newly emerging republics.

I contend that what passed as strategic intelligence during the Cold War--especially that targeted toward the Warsaw Pact--was very much an institutionalized comfort blanket. Saying the same things over and over again--while they may have in fact been correct--became more important that detecting changes.

I can tell you where the two worlds of Cold War strategic intelligence and the post-Cold War confusion met head on: Desert Shield when DIA, CIA, and the service intelligence systems had to focus on a non-WP enemy. The DCSINT of the US Army was lost in space--he just never got it and he really didn't try. Note that in Jan 1990 at the World Wide Threat Conference, he as a former J2 CENTCOM and now DCSINT of the Army removed iraq from the threat list. GEM Schwartzkopf went ballistic at the conference. I knew nothing of this as I took over the middle east current intel desk in June 1990; I got roasted by the Dep DCSINT for daring to say in early July 1990 that conditions in the region were favorable for a war. The DCSINT to the day that Saddam invade Kuwait insisted that it was all bluff. Afterwards he said "we" a lot when offering mea culpas.

In facing Desert Shield the strategic community was forced by conditions on the ground to take over tactical analysis to a very large degree, something it was ill-suited to do but did so anyway. That later paid a very large part in the idea that reachback was somehow better than eyes on the ground.

Had lunch a week ago with senior official whom I worked with on Rwanda. that official referred to Rwanda as a time when Washington thought it knew what was going on in the region better than those in the region. Maybe things have changed; I am not so sure but I am hopeful.

Tom

Bob's World
11-01-2009, 11:12 AM
As an example, we tend to assign tremendous resouces to look at specific problems. "You guys look at China, you guys look at AQ, etc."

But who is looking at the big picture? And for those looking at specific problems, who is looking at the context of things within those problems against the big picture? Who is assessing strategic risks and effects across the cumulative effects of how all these many, often seemingly unrelated, but all ultimately connected, things so that the guys starring down their respective soda straws can have some context?

Even within the specific lanes, you don't find the understanding of the larger problem that you would expect. Guys who focus on GWOT don't really have a tremendous understanding of the nature of insurgency, and insurgency related conflicts. They just focus on the players. If you also don't understand the game being played, there is no way you are going to make the right assessments of what the players moves mean.

But then pull up a level from that and ask, ok, so how does this AQ thing pan out in the larger mix of competitors, challengers, friends, threats, risks, opportunities, etc around the globe? What effect on overall national security to all threats if we take this particular course on this threat? (answer: I just look at this threat, and then only in the narrow context of what they can do to us and what we can do to them, so not only do I not really understand what their actions mean or what the likely second order effects of executing the actions I propose, but I certainly don't have an opinion as to how it would impact our relations with some party, friend or foe, on the other side of the globe...)

Obviously better interaction and fusion within staffs, between staffs, between agencies, and between states all serves to mitigate this effect. But if they all start by shaping the left and right limits of their interaction by a very narrow intel product....

I have thoughts on areas and considerations, just seeing if others have considered this as well.

slapout9
11-01-2009, 12:17 PM
I am rather cynical Bob, more than anything else some way some how it is always about the money. And based upon that, financial intelligence is the easiest way to understand a situation and it is usually the best predictor of a situation. Every once in a while you get a wild card and some unusual event will happen but more often than not it comes down to somebodies bottom line. When the FBI first started the primary people they hired were lawyers and accountants. Your thoughts?

Fuchs
11-01-2009, 12:25 PM
As an example, we tend to assign tremendous resouces to look at specific problems. "You guys look at China, you guys look at AQ, etc."

Another problem of this approach is that the topics get their own lobby that often fails to understand the appropriate weight of the topic in relation to other topics.
That in turn leads to a poor understanding of necessary priorities at the higher level.

Surferbeetle
11-01-2009, 02:34 PM
And based upon that, financial intelligence is the easiest way to understand a situation and it is usually the best predictor of a situation. Every once in a while you get a wild card and some unusual event will happen but more often than not it comes down to somebodies bottom line.

Too true.

Why did only certain areas in Mosul have waterlines? What facilities were electrified? Who was fighting to have what repaired/built? What companies were to do the work and who were they connected to? It was wise to think about mom (method, opportunity, motive), stakeholder analysis, swot, and vrine :wry:

Jedburgh
11-01-2009, 03:30 PM
....financial intelligence is the easiest way to understand a situation and it is usually the best predictor of a situation. Every once in a while you get a wild card and some unusual event will happen but more often than not it comes down to somebodies bottom line....
Slap, while in many cases, I'd agree with you, I feel that as a general statement it is simplistic and flawed.

I would argue that interest-based intelligence is a better descriptor of the critical piece of understanding you're trying to get across. This is a broader label that includes the financial aspect. A given target's interests may be fundamentally financial/economic, but often they are more nuanced. There's the old seeking for power and influence, within the unique context of the target, as well as interests driven by ethno-cultural and socio-political standing. These may also have financial/economic links, but the structure of those linkages may not appear strong or important enough to the analyst lacking an understanding of the other factors.

The tools that SB brings up, SWOT (http://one-cloud.blogspot.com/2008/10/hidden-dangers-of-swot-analysis.html), VRINE (http://faculty.unlv.edu/phelan/BUS496/2006/BUS496_CS_Lect3.ppt.), etc. can be very useful, but as with all analytic tools we have to be very careful about mirror-imaging and have the mental agility to innovate and modify those tools to fit the task at hand. This is necessary in many cases to move beyond purely financial/economic models and integrate the full spectrum of target interests into the analysis.

There is a real danger of bias and false assessments/conclusions in applying LE, business or any form of analytic tool in a cookie-cutter approach to strategic or any other type of analysis in the context of COIN, CT, FID, Stability Ops etc. etc.

I find real value in using matrices and qualitative modeling for analysis, but I've found that contextual differences tend to require tweaking the model to ensure accurate results. Look at attempts to use criminal intelligence hot spot mapping to the counter-IED fight. At a higher level, there's also Rossmo's Geographic Profiling (http://books.google.com/books?id=YQlS59Pv35oC&dq=geographic+profiling&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=taTtSo-rHI2oMOHFjIQM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=&f=false); its a very effective methodology - in its original context - that integrates a number of other proven investigative techniques. However, although some have tried, it doesn't transfer in its original form to an effective analytic method against insurgents or terrorists. But with substantive modification, it can.

As another example, the Getting to Yes Workbook (http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Ready-Negotiate-Penguin-Business/dp/0140235310) contains a number of charts and matrices that can be very useful for the analyst developing a mental picture of the target when suitably modified for context. Their use certainly applies well beyond the negotiation scenario for which they were originally designed.

In the end, what my disjointed Sunday morning rambling boils down to is that intelligence analytic tradecraft (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/Tradecraft%20Primer-apr09.pdf) requires mental agility and analytic innovation by professionals who also possess a solid in-depth understanding of the target situation. If we don't have enough people with both characteristics, then we don't have an effective intelligence capability.

Entropy
11-01-2009, 03:59 PM
Col. Jones,
A few more thoughts on your post:

WHAT exactly is strategic intelligence?
There are the book answers, but I think strategic intel can be divided into two categories: (1) Strategic warning and (2) strategic estimates that support policy. One aspect of Strategic intelligence that I believe is important is that it must be purposely limited (or focused) in some way to make it manageable and meaningful. Just because the issues may be "big picture" doesn't mean they can be open-ended or unlimited in scope. That why intel shops (and even CoCOMS) have specific responsibilities and that is why, I believe, there aren't many people dedicated to looking at the "big picture."

Warning is very broad and deep from an intelligence perspective since it can include any kind of intelligence (including a lot of tactical intel) and is continually updated, so it is also timely. It is functionally limited, however, to the narrow purpose of preventing surprise. That narrow purpose makes it manageable.

Estimates, by contrast, are not functionally limited. Instead, the scope of intelligence is limited as well as the time frame (ie. It’s difficult to keep the estimate continuously current). The NIE is the most obvious example of this kind of strategic intel.


why is it so rarely asked for, and even more rarely provided?

A few reasons (which are only my subjective, but informed opinion):

- Military commanders are used to tactical and operational intelligence and they want what they know (a point you touched on).

- Military intelligence people are trained in tactical and operational intelligence support and they provide what they know. It's easy to see how ops and intel people reinforce each other’s tendency to stay inside the operational/tactical box. Personally, I didn't begin to develop a strategic mindset until graduate school because my entire military experience was at the tactical and operational levels. So strategic education and training for intelligence people and senior leaders is necessary and it's simply not happening.

- The strategic questions that many want answered are usually too broad and unfocused to be practically answered. Consider the issues you list in your original post. You have probably hundreds doctoral theses worth of research and analysis in there. The questions you want answered require the kind of knowledge that is both a mile wide and a mile deep. I submit that it’s impossible to continuously maintain that level of expertise. The intel community works on such big questions through committees of experts who have the mile deep knowledge and together they potentially reach the mile-deep and mile-wide goal. They can’t sustain that, though, because they have to maintain their expertise. Now, there are certainly those who look at strategic problems through the mile-wide, inch-deep model. That is the realm of politicians, pundits and current intelligence. A middle ground is difficult to find. Be glad your intel people gave you a 1000 yard stare instead of trying to give you a shallow “Fred Barnes” answer.

- The cost-benefit of resourcing strategic intel vs. current/tactical/operational is perceived to be low most of the time for a variety of reasons one could write a book on. One reason is the "what have you done for me lately" syndrome. The guy who produces daily or weekly and can answer tactical and operational questions in minutes or hours is simply more valued than the guy who produces quarterly or semi-annually and needs weeks or months to answer strategic questions. For example, the history of strategic warning since 1947 shows a recurring pattern:
1. Resources get pulled out of strategic warning to support something else.
2. A major warning failure occurs.
3. The AAR identifies lack of support to strategic warning as a major factor in the failure.
4. Strategic warning becomes well-resourced and respected in the immediate aftermath.
5. Memories are short and pretty soon the leadership begins wondering why so much is going to the warning function when they don't appear to be doing much of anything.
6. Return to step 1.

There is also the problem that significant resources can be spent on a strategic subject that turns out to be irrelevant or simply confirms the common wisdom. Leaders then view the effort as wasted. That's not nearly as a big a problem at the operational and tactical level.

- Strategic intel requires direction and the continuous support of leadership. Unlike other types of intelligence, it can't be done ad hoc or as an additional or secondary duty. It's hard to overestimate how important that is. No analyst, no matter how proactive, is going to be able to answer those questions you listed unless that is their primary job. If you want them to be able to answer strategic-level intel questions then you need to get them out of the tactical and operation environment and assign them to work on strategic-level intelligence, exclusively.

- Strategic intel usually requires a depth of knowledge that is incompatible with the 2-3 year PCS cycle and the frequent internal moves over the course of one assignment. When I was at EUCOM, for example, I was in training for 3 months, on a watchfloor supporting theater units for 8 months, in an analysis shop doing mainly operational-level analysis (with a bit of what I'd call strategic) for six months, supporting a war (Allied Force) for 4 months, back to the analysis shop for 3 months, then PCS. Also, a turnover with your replacement is almost always inadequate (a couple of weeks usually) and is often nonexistent since assignments (at least in my experience) are frequently gaped. It's not hard to get quickly spun-up to support current intel. It's very hard to get spun-up on strategic topics because the required depth-of-knowledge is so great.

- Strategic intel has been intentionally and unintentionally outsourced. Most inputs into strategic intel are open-source, so the unclassified guys (Janes, EIU, etc.) can seriously compete. The obsession with current intel and punditry doesn’t help.

- Stovepiping, which is still a problem. Strategic intelligence questions are almost always interdisciplinary and it's unlikely a CoCOM or any one agency will have all the expertise in-house. Getting analysts at another agency to help you with your problem can be a bureaucratic nightmare unless you're at the NSC-level and can order production of an NIE and force the various agencies to participate.

-Communication. Requests for analysis and information are invariably altered as they pass through layers of bureaucracy so the problem an analysts gets is often much different from what the originator wanted. I’ve seen this particularly with sycophantic officers who, upon hearing a question from the General during a briefing, will order up reams of wide-ranging analysis for what was only a simple clarification. More wasted effort is the result.

- Finally, there is asking the right question, which is more difficult than most people think. IOW, defining the intelligence requirement is critically important. This requires collaboration between the analyst and the “customer” to determine exactly what is and is NOT needed. It’s important that the problem not be too open-ended but it also can’t be overly narrow. The latter was a serious flaw in the Iraq WMD NIE which led to OIF. Here’s how Robert Clark puts it in his book on intelligence analysis:


The problem definition was focused solely on the question of whether Iraq had WMD programs, and if so, what they were. By focusing on weapons of mass destruction, analysts had a tendency to fit all evidence into a WMD model. Analysts assumed that Iraq had WMD programs, and analysis proceeded from that point. A broader look at Iraq’s overall military capability would have found more logical explanations for some of the evidence.

I think your issues are worth exploring. I think you need to sell the idea to your leadership in order to get the resources. I think you’d be best served by forming a group of experts to look at your issues and giving them the time and resources necessary to examine your issues. As I mentioned to you in another thread, a Commander's priority intelligence requirements (PIR's) are how intel people prioritize intelligence production. Changing the PIR's to strategic priorities is an important first step. Good luck!

William F. Owen
11-01-2009, 04:13 PM
So, here is my question: WHAT exactly is strategic intelligence? and why is it so rarely asked for, and even more rarely provided?


Very good question. I do not see how you can have any such thing as Strategic intelligence. The word Strategic seems to be poorly used in place of "expensive" and/or "important."

Intelligence relating to strategy? So that would depend entirely on the strategy being used.

More importantly, intelligence should support or serve a Policy - because strategy is how policy is applied. Strategy is how something is done using force.

Steve the Planner
11-01-2009, 05:14 PM
50 billion a year on intelligence gathering, and most of it is, as many said, tactical.

It is easy for me to incorrectly suggest that I was a dumb-ass civilian planner/development manager before I answered Ambassador Crocker's call for a civilian surge in 2007, but the truth is that as a former tank commander in Germany during the mid-70s, I was transfixed by the issue of boundaries and populations (and movements in response), which my subsequent education (undergrad: geography/economics), and grad: planning & policy), all reinforced.

Truth is I worked on regional geographic analysis through experiences like with a railroad industrial development shop, for a regional business park developer, and as a planning expert on school boundaries, growth patterns, and economic/demographic/industrial/infrastructure consequences.

Throughout, a substantial component of my real estate client base was the signal intelligence core in the Baltimore-Washington Corridor, but, while mindful of their capabilities, on the civilian side (like Surfbeetle), we were punching through new levels of applications of civilian technology (GIS, disaggregated population studies and forecasting, market-based momentum patterns, and systems dynamics models for regional, area, and sub-area public resource planning.

With that as a background, I went to Northern Iraq to form a civilian reconstruction planning hub to link PRT, US mil, and Iraqi governance and service extension, but was floored by the lack of relevant US knowledge, in 2008, of the background geographic, demographic, economic, infrastructure and systems knowledge needed to understand what was going on there.

I would look at at these civilian maps, and my geographer's eye would immediately track to the fact that provincial and district boundaries were often illogical and in conflict. Why, in one map, was Taji shown as a part of Salah ad Din, and in another, as a part of Baghdad? Why was the majority of Bayji city shown to be a part of Tikrit? Why, as a senior civilian reconstruction adviser, was I unable to determine from competing population data, whether Samarra had 200,000 or 400,000 people enclosed within the defensive wall?

On the action level, we had USAID and CERP money pouring into proposals to restart poultry processing when, in fact, none of the poultry production needed to support a poultry restart was in place, and there was no systematic process in place to map out the poultry chain and dependencies (grain mills, egg hatcheries) necessary to make these poultry processing houses sustainable.

With MND-North (in 2008), we began the process of systematically mapping out the agri-business sector, industrial sectors, and political boundaries. For the first time, we knew how many asphalt plants existed in Northern Iraq and theoir current capacity and status (and therefore, the maximum amount of asphalt available for road repair). For the first time, we mapped out the locations of regional Iraqi highway repair facilities, and the fact that they had NO equipment---a good reason why reconstruction was at a crawl on the Iraqi side.

This past summer, for example, I saw a press release from John Nagl and a group of investment partners, that they had funded the opening of the first tomato canning factory in Iraq (in Kurdistan). In fact, Balad Canning Factory was reopened with a $10 million capaital injection in June 2008, but the demand for tomatoes in drought-and refugee-pressed Mosul was so great that all the tomatoes from Balad were being trucked up to Mosul.

It just didn't make sense.

So, in 2008, we started from scratch the systematic mapping and analysis of civilian economic, population, admin/political boundaries, and infrastructure in order to move beyond wasted efforts to chase "low-hanging fruit," one brigade at a time, and in the fifth year of "occupation" (also one year at at time).

Armed with the realization that so much of Iraq's civilian information was either terrible or misleading, I started going through reports like the DoS pre-war Iraq Study Group, and quickly understood that much of the "insights" were nothing more than uninformed WAGs from ex-Iraqis, and lacked any credibility for analysis or planning of anything substantive about Iraq.

Moreover, I came home with terra drives full of historical boundary maps and population data (gathered while with the UN Politcal Team), to which I have since added many more terrabytes of open source historicasl reports and documents, and the picture is clear, at least to me, that much of what is now needed to be known to make clear assessments of the political condition and structure of Iraq, was easily knowable---but nobody had put it together in a way typical of most civilian analytical frameworks.

So, I am watching the same patterns emerging in Afghanistan---background civilian data that is just GIGO---and fundamental emerging trends that any reasonable civilian analyst in the US would have spotted and opined on years ago, but are completely missed in our tactical, geophysical and military only focus.

As with the Afghan Population thread from last week, was Afghanistan bigger than Iraq (No), and what of the now-missing 5 million Afghans resulting from the CIA Factbook's recent reduction of population estimates from 33.6 million to 28.4?

Obviously, all the rest of the minute Afghan sub-population calculations (percent ethnic, age, urban, etc..) is just GIGO.

Same with Entropy's effort to track Afghan provincial and district boundaries. In a conflict zone, these dynamic boundary changes are both a driver, and evidence of, potential or past conflict. The Iraqi ones are a clear roadmap of, and to, conflict.

In Iraq, for example, we could have just integrated the civilian mapping sources (including deed references and names) to accomplish twice as much knowledge, systematically, as was gained from haphazard HTS data. That hugely valuable info about property ownership, names and families, was readily available as frame to rapidly convert HTS into a fact-checker and troubleshooter instead of a piece-meal collector.

Yes, I have seen a lot of the tribal mapping stuff, and a lot of it, by contrast to more concrete sources (census, deeds, etc.), as field checked by UN staff from the DIBS team, is remarkably substandard for strategic-level analysis.

As for core reconstruction, it didn't take Beetle or I to be on the ground to have pointed out that a brigade-level profusion of well-drilling (as a quick hit drought response) would have significant ramifications for water tables (and existing wells) in Northern Iraq, and that, with or without them, large numbers of droughted-out farmers would be flocking as refugees to cities like Mosul, compounding urban political instability issues there.

The big lesson that I learned is that, at the strategic level, there is no understanding of how to collect and analyze routine civilian data with the level of acuity or dynamism helpful to plan and implement in conflict or post-conflict environment.

I know that many folks believe that by spending $50 billion annually on intelligence gathering, they must know something, but, from my perspective, it is a very tactical something, and the gap for strategic purposes is, in fact, huge?

How many other countries, like Iraq in 1990, aren't we tracking, and don't know enough about to be ready to effectively gauge and respond to? My guess is that it is far more than policy makers think.

That's my Sunday missile.

Steve

davidbfpo
11-01-2009, 05:34 PM
Steve the Planner cited:
How many other countries, like Iraq in 1990, aren't we tracking, and don't know enough about to be ready to effectively gauge and respond to? My guess is that it is far more than policy makers think.

The UK learnt this lesson wayback in 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands; an intelligence target we did watch, not enough. The Franks Report on the intelligence failure: http://www.margaretthatcher.org/archive/displaydocument.asp?docid=109481

More contemporary example, Germany no longer gives Latin America any priority in intelligence gathering.

Today I'd suggest there are large chunks of the world which are little watched or the USA depends on others to assist with what little they have. If the DEA focus didn't exist and the drugs trade was not international where would Latin America feature for the USA? Pretty low.

davidbfpo

Steve the Planner
11-01-2009, 06:52 PM
David:

In college, I was required to write a book report for a Geographic Thought class, so, like any good college student, I browsed the shelves for the thinnest book I could find---a 1935 tome on the geography of conflict.

What was there? Indo-China, Falklands, the Middle East, Balkans, Afghanistan/Pakistan/Kashmir, etc....

Not very complicated, is it?

Steve

davidbfpo
11-01-2009, 07:10 PM
Steve,

Valid point, but taking the Middle East as one example. Oil production IIRC was concentrated in a few places, notably Abadan, Iran; the oil resources in North Africa e.g. Libya had not been identified. So the focus in the region has moved around.

I am sure mapping of conflict will show the same places dominate, so will an article search - who for example watches the Dardenelles closely now?

Reversing the focus - which areas do not feature? Have those changed over time?

Ethiopia is one country that has a low historical profile, for a variety of reasons and without media and NGO reported starvation i.e. Band Aid would it feature on a current map of places that need watching? I think not.

Geography is one aspect, important yes; there are others - religion for one.

davidbfpo

Steve the Planner
11-01-2009, 07:28 PM
Far be it from me to say that our investment in tactical intelligence isn't crucial, but it would be good, at some level, to improve acuity on the basics like gepography, demographics, trade patterns, basic structure and function of internal governments, and key infrastructure---for the purpose of possible conflict analysis.

On the other hand, when I first heard about Human Terrain, it was in that context, not as just an anthropological endeavor about tribes.

In the pre-Kennedy days, every Embassy, for example, had a geographic attache, whose sole job was to collect any and all maps, reports and studies he could gather, and feed them into the system where folks in Foggy Bottom could study them to help interpret the World.

No more geographic attaches, and if there were, I doubt the collected info would go anywhere. Looks to me like even the CIA is just looking on the web, including our site. Not what people think.

Steve

Jedburgh
11-01-2009, 09:00 PM
...it would be good, at some level, to improve acuity on the basics like gepography, demographics, trade patterns, basic structure and function of internal governments, and key infrastructure---for the purpose of possible conflict analysis.
Amen. I would only insert a phrase into your statement:

It would be good, at some level, to improve acuity on the basics like geography, demographics, trade patterns, basic structure and function of internal governments, and key infrastructure - and the interactions and interdependencies between and among those factors - for the purpose of possible conflict analysis.

...On the other hand, when I first heard about Human Terrain, it was in that context, not as just an anthropological endeavor about tribes...
See Edward Ullman, Human Geography and Area Studies, published in 1953. In the paper, Ullman describes how the discipline of geography is more than just physical geography or maps. He goes on to differentiate specific geographic studies between other social science disciplines, and sums up with an advocacy for a multi-disciplined team approach to area studies:

...By spatial interaction I mean actual, meaningful human relations between areas on the earth's surface, such as the reciprocal relations and flows of all kinds among industries, raw materials, markets, culture and transportation-not static location as indicated by latitude, longitude, type of climate etcetera, nor assumed relations based on inadequate data and a priori assumptions.....


....Looks to me like even the CIA is just looking on the web, including our site....
I won't comment on the Agency specifically, but in general I do believe that an over-reliance on technology is destroying true analytic capabilities in many areas. I believe I've mentioned before on this board the story of the terrain team NCOIC in Afghanistan who had no clue how to develop a real terrain analysis narrative product supporting the imagery, but instead kept insisting that the imagery itself was all that was necessary.

Bob's World
11-01-2009, 09:05 PM
This is very helpful guys, keep it up!

Steve the Planner
11-01-2009, 09:30 PM
The person I watch is LTG Mark Hertling.

Stepped in the shoes of Petreaus and Odierno in Northern Iraq for the Surge, now to Tradoc.

His crew at MND-North, as I am sure many Division-level commands, was chock full of some really brilliant folks with deep experience from multiple tours in Iraq. And he knew how to focus and prioritize those capabilities...

He knew there was nothing in place to drive civilian reconstruction/stability, so he just set about coordinating civilians and military to get there. Thus, a lot of the background research done for the first time. And all of it was put into play as soon as developed.

There was never as time when, for example, we needed a physics expert to address an odd-duck electrical problem, that they couldn't just reach internally or externally to put a West Point physics professor on the line. And reach-back is a fantastic tool if you know what you are trying to solve.

If anybody is going to reach to a COIN 2.0, it will be him.

Steve

Rex Brynen
11-01-2009, 09:33 PM
I think we're confusing several cross-cutting issues here, and in so doing highlighting some of the very challenges involved in the question.

1) What is strategic intelligence? And is it actually very useful? I think Wilf interjected an important element of caution here--its all to easy to presume that greater/better intel would somehow make the strategic choices better or the strategies themselves more effective. In many cases, it's not clear that is the case at all.

2) Much of what people seem to want is not necessarily strategic intelligence, but rather multidisciplinary intel that cuts across issues and elements in a way that either threat-intel or country-focus or agency stovepiping doesn't facilitate. This can be a problem, but it is not necessarily that hard to do. Moreover, since I know that that work is out there--I've been in two meetings this month alone with the US IC that certainly fell into that category--I'm wondering if the problem is that people aren't accessing what there is available.

Perhaps it would be useful if Bob, or someone else, would (within reason) put a hypothetical request for strategic intel on the table for us to focus the discussion on--that is, what would would look for in the product, where that product would best be generated (and in conjunction with whom), what the basic building blocks would be, and why it would be useful in in supporting strategic policy formulation and implementation.

At the moment the discussion on what is needed/wanted risks drifting around at the level of vagueness that drives real-life intel managers and analysts a little loopy.

Steve the Planner
11-01-2009, 09:44 PM
Rex:

Good point:

In Iraq, I was, at one point, focused on creating a civilian reconstruction GIS Base Layer to drive reconstruction planning.

So I was asked what the base layer should contain, and why. The list was something like this:

1. Basic Place Geography

2. Topography & Physical Geography

3. Core Infrastructure (Roads, Bridges, Power, etc...)

4. Population Distribution

5. Key Government Facilities

The question came back: Tell me about this "topy thing?" What's that about?

So, it depends on whether the decision=makers are going to be able to understand/use it?

I don't believe the background studies we are talking about are strategic intelligence, just background Base Layer stuff. The frame to which somebody attaches strategy, or, at worst, discounts strategy. Like when S-2 in a recent post re: Cities Strategy thought in made sense to add up the population* of the cities in question to determine the relative strength of that posture to the overall country.

Steve

* Not that I would put much credence in many of the pop data sets available.

Old Eagle
11-01-2009, 11:11 PM
As a former puryeyor of "strategic" intelligence, I would say that the short answer is where the taskings come from and how resulting intel will be applied. Typical post-CW strategic taskings included how different countries would react to the changing environment, capabilities as they applied to strategic issues, etc.

Would the French re-integrate with the NATO military command structure? Would the European neutrals join NATO after the Soviet threat diminished? Wouls X grant overflights in support of combat scenarios? Would Y join us if we began military operations against Z? If not join, would they be either supportive or non-hindering? If another country joined a coalition, what could they reasonably bring to the fight?

There is, therefore a meaningful definition of strategic intelligence, probably in some doctrinal pub some place. Taskings may come from GCCs, but they predominantly originate in Washinton/London/Berlin.

This is an operator's perspective only. Things may look differently from the cubicle farm.

Surferbeetle
11-01-2009, 11:43 PM
I think we're confusing several cross-cutting issues here, and in so doing highlighting some of the very challenges involved in the question.

1) What is strategic intelligence? And is it actually very useful?

Rex,

From my armchair strategic intelligence is an imprecise phrase with different meanings at the strategic (grand strategy), operational, and tactical levels.

A nations grand strategy takes into account such global factors as information, governance, economics, diplomacy, and security and requires a whole of government approach. It would follow that strategic (grand strategy) intelligence would provide insight on these topics. An open source example:

From the Economist: A special report on China and America, A wary respect (http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14678579)


Back in 1905, America was the rising power. Britain, then ruler of the waves, was worrying about losing its supremacy to the upstart. Now it is America that looks uneasily on the rise of a potential challenger. A shared cultural and political heritage helped America to eclipse British power without bloodshed, but the rise of Germany and Japan precipitated global wars. President Barack Obama faces a China that is growing richer and stronger while remaining tenaciously authoritarian. Its rise will be far more nettlesome than that of his own country a century ago.

Much of military intelligence appears to focused upon security issues (primarily tactical and operational strategy), and in the current fight some of us feel that a wider focus which includes localized economics, governance, information, and diplomacy issues would be of value. By localized level I mean region, country, province, district, subdistrict, city, village, or block. An open source example:

Institute for the Study of War: The Fight for Mosul (http://www.understandingwar.org/report/the-fight-for-mosul)


In 2007, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was steadily pushed into northern Iraq. By the spring of 2008, the network attempted to regroup in certain areas, particularly around the city of Mosul. Mosul has long been an important hub for the Sunni insurgency and Coalition commanders have identified it as a strategic center of gravity for AQI. Though AQI cells remain in central Iraq, the principal fight against the network is now taking place in Mosul, western Ninawa province, and further south in the Za’ab triangle. As the fight against AQI proceeds and the Government of Iraq attempts to establish security and governance in northern Iraq it is important to understand the context in which this struggle will take place. Iraq Report #8 focuses on the fight for Mosul beginning with the context and history of the city and then detailing efforts to establish security in Mosul and Ninawa from the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003 through the shaping operations that preceded Operations’ Lions’ Roar and Mother of Two Springs in May 2008.

Things are complicated by incorrect classification levels...i.e. everybody on the battlefield knows where the water treatment plant is located, does it really need to be classified? Things are even further complicated by stovepiping and despite our technological advantages we still have great difficulty in developing a commonly shared picture of the disparate/multidisciplinary influences upon the ground we are to hold. IMO the need for a wider view, one which is not just limited to security issues, is the driver of that imprecise phrase strategic intelligence.

Steve the Planner
11-02-2009, 01:01 AM
Bob:

I read the 2007 Heidenrich piece which does seem to create a good overview relevant to your initial questions.

I have never really been interested in mil intelligence, just trying to do reconstruction, but seeing how the basic infrastructure stuff is so poor for my side, understanding what's really gone wrong, as Heidenrich explains, in the changes in the system.

It didn't take me long to realize that in Iraq, stovepiping wasn't the issue. The lack of credible background info was. Basic dumb stuff of the Gertrude Bell variety. In fact, in reading her work in Iraq, she seemed to have more basic situational awareness than we had in Iraq.

It's not just about railroad lines and highway lines, but what they connect to, volumes and patterns of traffic. Why are they there? What's important?

On a contemporary basis, whether in Iraq or Afghanistan, How many checkpoints along each major route? Who mans them? What do they charge? How many cars/trcuks are backed up? What are they carrying? What is their origin/destination? Why, under such circumstances, would certain things continue to move while others are stopped? How many get a "free pass?" Why?

From a political/administrative standpoint, who reports to who? What is the basic structure of provincial/district/sub-district government? Who fixes which roads? Which police station feeds to which Court or Prison? Who runs them? Why are people arrested? How many are released? Why were they arrested and/or released?

During shock and awe, we often saturated road/bridge systems rather than just minimally disabling them. The destruction was much more than needed, and then, we bore the brunt of the damage and delays to reconstruct. Go figure?

Of the power plants, how many are actually running? What capacity? In Bayji, the local operators would pour oil in the base of the generators and burn it just to make the other locals think power was being generated---instead of people attacking him for not producing power.

Sure, we had the intel guys find the grain routes, but that was in 2008. There was nobody in the first five years looking for them. Why was that?

Trouble is that we hardly understand the routes anymore, let alone things that are important.

Much more to it, in my mind, to just getting base work in order to later answer questions.

Love to be able to rattle off the answers to your initial questions, but I doubt anybody really knows. Take Afghanistan alone, and apply those questions to each category of country that surrounds it, and each sub-category of entity/condition, and each would be a chain of linked relationships. Measuring them would be the art that we seem to have lost how to perform.

Steve

Jedburgh
11-02-2009, 01:01 AM
....There is, therefore a meaningful definition of strategic intelligence, probably in some doctrinal pub some place...
JP 2-0 Joint Intelligence (http://fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp2_0.pdf), 22 Jun 07

Strategic Intelligence

National strategic intelligence is produced for the President, Congress, Secretary of Defense, senior military leaders, and the CCDRs. It is used to develop national strategy and policy, monitor the international situation, prepare military plans, determine major weapon systems and force structure requirements, and conduct strategic operations. Strategic intelligence operations also produce the intelligence required by CCDRs to prepare strategic estimates, strategies, and plans to accomplish missions assigned by higher authorities.



FM 2-0 Intelligence (http://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm2-0.pdf), 17 May 04

SUPPORT TO STRATEGIC RESPONSIVENESS

Intelligence support to strategic responsiveness supports staff planning and preparation by defining the full spectrum of threats, forecasting future threats, and forewarning the commander of enemy actions and intentions. Support to strategic responsiveness consists of four subtasks: Perform I&W, ensure intelligence readiness, conduct area studies of foreign countries, and support sensitive site exploitation.



UK Army Field Manual Volume 1 Combined Arms Operations, Part 3 Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR), Mar 02

Strategic Intelligence: Intelligence which is required for the formation of policy and military plans at national and international levels.

Bill Moore
11-02-2009, 01:12 AM
Some thoughts on this as I work on some projects in my lane:

1. What types of Competitors are associated with a problem, probably laid out in 3 tiers from those directly engaged, those 1 degree of separation away, and those 2 degrees of separation away.
a. Who are the state actors?
1. Nuclear States
2. Non-nuclear States
3. Failing States
4. Criminal States

The above list looks more like a typology than information that would inform a strategy. However, I know if you're working on this there is more to it than meets the eye. A list of all States under the classification of nuclear and non-nuclear doesn't inform strategy, but if a nuclear state is at risk of failing, then that becomes strategically important.

Then the pressing issue is determining why the State is failing, and using Steve the Planner's post as an example, I tend to agree that we don't do this well. Our IC is enemy focused, and that is still a critical component of intelligence for the military (probably still the most critical), but that doesn't provide the necessary information needed to rebuild Iraq or Afghanistan for example. Now we're getting more into what has been coined human terrain or human geography along with economics, politics, etc. and as Jedburgh pointed out how all these various items combine to provide a functional context. Not sure if that is rates as operational or strategic intelligence, just know that we need it.

I think there are two components that strategic planners/advisors require. One is a strategic design and the other is a list of our known strategic interests (security, economy, etc.)

A Strategic Design process that parallels Operational Design would potentially provide strategists a context to better understand whether a particular situation actually warrants a response on our part. Is this situation that actually threatens one of our strategic interests to begin with?

This step is critical, especially since the Joint Operating Environment (JOE) informs us that numerous trends are converging in troubling ways, so we'll be faced with more "potential" crises in the near future than we can ever hope to effectively deal with, so a strategy and strategic design is essential to inform our triage process. The IC would be responsible for continuously updating the design, which would require a reorganization process on their part, as this is not a simple undertaking.

Immediately following WWII the world was still complex, but our strategic priorities were more black and white. It was determined by our national leadership that rebuilding Japan and Germany to counter the growing communist threat was in our national interests, and IMHO it was a well informed strategy that resulted on substantial return on our investment.

Now jumping to the post Cold War era, we responded to the crisis in Somalia in the early 90s presummably because our leadership thought it was in our national interest to do so, but we accomplished little, and on the other hand we didn't respond to the crisis in Rwanda, why? This is the post Cold War era strategic gray area that we still live in.

One of advantage of having a strategy and strategic design (which should provide a common understanding of the issues to the U.S. Government, thus help facilitate consensus) is that once the leadership determines a particular effort is in our strategic interests then we should invest fully in it. Our design already tells us the risks if we don't do so. That begs the question do we get involved if it isn't in our strategic interests? Realpolitic suggests yes, but at least I would hope we would invest lightly and keep one hand on the eject button, so we don't get stuck in a quagmire that isn't truly in our long term interests. That means we would limit our public objectives so we don't box ourselves in with our own rhethoric.

In many ways the debate over Afghanistan relates back to a lack of strategy and strategic design. The key question now seems to be is it in our national interests to rebuild Afghanistan as stable state? Unfortunately there is no consensus, because we don't have a common understanding of the strategic context. If the answer is yes, then it will most likely call for a substantial investment, much like the investment we made in Germany and Japan. After eight years of fighting we still having fully committed to one approach or the other.

Strategy, Strategic Design and Strategic Intelligence are important, even if we can't define what it is :-).

Steve the Planner
11-02-2009, 01:13 AM
Bob:

I think Jedburgh hit it, intentionally or otherwise. Spy vs. spy spooky stuff. They are so wrapped up in military assets that they forget to look at the background that makes a place and a situation tick.

Saddam didn't care what we thought about him having WMD. Between the Kurds and Shi'as at his back, he was more interested that the Iranians and his other neighbors thought he had them. Nothing, per se, to do with weapons, and everything to do with historical and domestic issues.

The worse things got on the home front, the greater the internal and external threat. The more the need to posture.

Steve

slapout9
11-02-2009, 02:02 PM
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita on predicting Strategic Events



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts5MKtXNpMQ

Entropy
11-02-2009, 07:55 PM
Col. Jones,

Sorry if this suggestion appears obvious, but have you or your intel people researched to see of some other organization or agency is working on your issues? The CIA and State's INR seem like obvious candidates, but a dozen or so calls or emails to the right people should give you an indication of any classified work in that area. The other obvious suggestion is open-source research to see what's available in open and grey literature.

William F. Owen
11-03-2009, 05:13 AM
JP 2-0 Joint Intelligence (http://fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp2_0.pdf), 22 Jun 07

Strategic Intelligence

National strategic intelligence is produced for the President, Congress, Secretary of Defense, senior military leaders, and the CCDRs. It is used to develop national strategy and policy, monitor the international situation, prepare military plans, determine major weapon systems and force structure requirements, and conduct strategic operations. Strategic intelligence operations also produce the intelligence required by CCDRs to prepare strategic estimates, strategies, and plans to accomplish missions assigned by higher authorities.


So strategic intelligence is used to develop national strategy AND policy? Wow. That makes no sense. It might all make sense if you took out the word "strategic." - so just say intelligence?

Steve the Planner
11-03-2009, 05:22 AM
If War is just Diplomacy at a different stage, in these particularl brands of civil/military adventures, what is the intelligence set needed to win the war if the war is only won after the civilian system is stabilized?

Maybe, we are just dealing with a corollary to the modern penchant for systemic approaches (Comprehensive Shock Trauma Centers) vs. Hospitals and Doctors, but, it seems that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan fit any bills of what used to be war, and what used to be needed to win them.

So what is strategic intelligence? The big picture stuff?

Steve

William F. Owen
11-03-2009, 05:44 AM
.....but, it seems that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan fit any bills of what used to be war, and what used to be needed to win them.


Huh? WTF? Are you saying that Iraq and A'Stan are somehow unique types of conflict? Well all conflicts have unique aspects to them, but both Iraq and A'Stan have produced NOTHING new in either war or warfare.

You "win" them the same way you win all wars. - Either by negotiating a peace acceptable to YOU! - not the Afghans - or by forcing military defeat upon them, by breaking their will to endure. - maybe not possible, given the US's inability to use force in the effective ways, and thus their search for strategic snake oil, which will take all the pain away......

Steve the Planner
11-03-2009, 06:20 AM
Maybe that is the point.

No "national level" capitulation, imposition of will (We are liberating, not occupying!???), and no civilian administrative follow-up except an "expeditionary" repair crew.

What does it mean when clear, hold and build might actually mean clear, then pass the hot potato? When the Romans took over, they brought stability, trade, civic improvements, etc.. that, at the worst, co-opted their enemies, and at the best, brought something substantive---a major change in society, economy and possibilities.

We are, in these countries, replacing vicious dictatorial governments, in eternally treacherous multi-national conflict zones. Afterwards, can we really expect instant New England style-self-governance and all the historical external conflicts to flake-off?

Assuming we have a long-run interest in these places, they will require years to evolve to some better stage. No matter how much I want Iraq to quickly attain peace, stability and prosperity, the situation may remain a challenge for many years to come, even with (or despite) Iraq's substantial underlying oil resources. Certainly, it is rapidly becoming Iraq's problem to define it's future, but there are substantial internal and external challenges that will remain to challenge their possibilities.

But what to make of Afghanistan??

What is the "strategic" objective, and are we aligned, resourced and trained to deliver it? Does it fit the landscape?


Steve

Dayuhan
11-05-2009, 11:11 PM
Huh? WTF? Are you saying that Iraq and A'Stan are somehow unique types of conflict? Well all conflicts have unique aspects to them, but both Iraq and A'Stan have produced NOTHING new in either war or warfare.

I've always thought our approach to Iraq showed echoes of the days when a war ended when you rolled down the main street of the other side's capitol city. Never quite understood why some seemed unable to understand why the war didn't stop at that point. Sort of a chessboard approach - when the king falls the game is over - but hardly consistent with today's realities.



You "win" them the same way you win all wars. - Either by negotiating a peace acceptable to YOU! - not the Afghans - or by forcing military defeat upon them, by breaking their will to endure.

Curious about those ideas.... who would be "them" in your view of A'stan? The Afghans? The Taliban? Wouldn't a negotiated peace have to be acceptable to all major parties if it's to have any chance of producing peace?

I suspect that the military's lack of emphasis on "strategic intelligence" may have something to do with the overlap between "strategic intelligence" and "political analysis", the latter being possibly seen as more the province of the State Dept and the non-government analytical community.

Steve the Planner
11-05-2009, 11:58 PM
Went to a Center for American Progress conference today.

Gilles Dorronsoro, Micheal Semple and Joanne Nathan (corrected), all non-US experts who have been in Afghanistan since before 2001.

Each had a presentation on their field. Most of you have heard some of this: Dorronsorro (secure the cities first, etc..), and Semple's work with the Taliban are pretty well known.

Nathan, an Australian, asked: What's this COIN thing about? I read the manual and it said Clear-Hold-Build, but all you ever do is Clear, Clear, Clear. No administrative purpose or capability. Why are you clearing unless you have civilian capacity to Hold and Build? Where has this strategy ever been applied?

Even Andrew Exum didn't take a stab at answering that.

The big question that all were asked to comment on: What do you think of these people who see one small part of the country, then try to exprapolte what they saw there to a bigger picture about the country? (Obviously, the Hoh question).

They were pretty devastating in explaining just a snippet of what they know about the whole country, and why that kind of speculation is not useful.

Like Exum said, DC is usually full of generalists, and it was a rare opportunity to have three leading specialists in one place.

Certainly worth hearing every word yourself to build or assess strategy.

http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2009/11/AfghanInsurgency.html/streaming.html

Steve

Steve the Planner
11-05-2009, 11:59 PM
Joanne Nathan, not Joanne Semple. (Typo) Correction just made.

Bob's World
11-06-2009, 07:29 PM
Clear-hold-build is a good tactic (It worked great for the US as we implemented a strategy of "manifest destiny" to build this nation), but it is not a "strategy" in of itself.

Similarly, when I speak of what we are lacking in terms of strategic intelligence, it is not a quest for a country-wide perspective, or even a geographic combatant command -wide perspective, but rather a perspective that takes into account and places into context seemingly unrelated factors as they in fact do interact and interrelate globally.

So, in persuit of tactical victory in Afghanistan, what effect to US National security as a whole if the approach chosen (say, clear-hold-build; that is short on hold and build as described above) provokes the hell out of muslim populaces in 12 other countries and actually builds the base of support for AQ globally? How could the approach be tailored to mitigate those undesired and unintended effects? Is "victory" even necessary to secure US national interests?

We all crowd around the campfires our tactical comanders are tending to so that we can stare at the same flames. Then, when our butts start smoking from a flame behind us we proclaim "Black Swan! no one could have predicted that!" Perhaps. But then again, if some would have been held to task to look in other directions in the first place, perhaps not.

Steve the Planner
11-07-2009, 02:27 AM
Bob:

As a dumbass tank commander from the old black boot army, one to the front, one to the rear, and the rest at the sides.

Nathan's point was that, without admin activity to hold and build, COIN is not being applied---just a piece of it.

Their broader points as to how and where to engage Afghanistan (with detailed differences area by area) are pretty extensive, and highly detailed. They are not about defeating the "bad guys" but how to hold on to the good guys, to later engage the bad guys more effectively.

I think I agree with their general posture that the sum of many tactics don't equal strategy, and it is the strategy that must be addressed first, and the tactics to followed it.

Interesting perspectives.

Steve

William F. Owen
11-07-2009, 06:14 AM
I've always thought our approach to Iraq showed echoes of the days when a war ended when you rolled down the main street of the other side's capitol city. Never quite understood why some seemed unable to understand why the war didn't stop at that point. Sort of a chessboard approach - when the king falls the game is over - but hardly consistent with today's realities.
The very fact that view exists shows how bad our teaching of strategy is. Napoleon occupied and burnt Moscow. He lost the war! The Idiot Hannibal won victory after victory and never attacked the one thing most likely to allow him to win - Rome!


Curious about those ideas.... who would be "them" in your view of A'stan? The Afghans? The Taliban? Wouldn't a negotiated peace have to be acceptable to all major parties if it's to have any chance of producing peace? Them is context specific. Negotiated with those who you can talk to. Bribe those you can kill if required and kill those who will not talk. - or some combination of the above. Point being that unless you get WHAT YOU WANT, then you have failed. - as the US seems unable to articulate what it wants in Afghanistan, I am not optimistic!


I suspect that the military's lack of emphasis on "strategic intelligence" may have something to do with the overlap between "strategic intelligence" and "political analysis", the latter being possibly seen as more the province of the State Dept and the non-government analytical community.
Yep. No one will understand the dissonance of "strategic intelligence" until someone actually teaches strategy!

Entropy
11-07-2009, 09:07 PM
Similarly, when I speak of what we are lacking in terms of strategic intelligence, it is not a quest for a country-wide perspective, or even a geographic combatant command -wide perspective, but rather a perspective that takes into account and places into context seemingly unrelated factors as they in fact do interact and interrelate globally.

So, in pursuit of tactical victory in Afghanistan, what effect to US National security as a whole if the approach chosen (say, clear-hold-build; that is short on hold and build as described above) provokes the hell out of muslim populaces in 12 other countries and actually builds the base of support for AQ globally? How could the approach be tailored to mitigate those undesired and unintended effects? Is "victory" even necessary to secure US national interests?

I don't think it's possible to answer your questions since future effects will NOT be determined solely, or even - one might argue - primarily, by a particular tactical strategy. It's more likely that other unknown and unpredictable factors will have a bigger effective impact on your question than clear-hold-build vs something else. There's also the definitional problem in that "clear-hold-build" can be implemented in a variety of ways. How such a strategy is implemented is likely to have just as big an effect (if not more so) than the strategy itself. What assumptions should a strategic intel analyst make? That's a critically important question because the assumptions will determine the results of the analysis. Who decides what the assumptions are?

For example, let's set the wayback machine to before OIF and try to ask similar questions. With the benefit of hindsight, is it possible to determine if a different operational ground campaign would have affected Muslim populaces any differently? Suppose we did what Saddam expected - a long air campaign followed by a ground invasion. How would things be different? What effect would that different approach have on Muslim populations and support for AQ? Maybe with a long air campaign we might have killed Saddam before the ground invasion. Maybe with a long air campaign we would have killed a ton of civilians with errant bombs, inciting even more world and Muslim hostility than already existed. Even with hindsight and knowing how one path turned out, it's impossible to know how things would be different today if another path was taken.

Of course, some effects of the invasion surely were predictable and were predicted (and ignored), but some of the biggest effects resulted from events that were not anticipated or planned for - Abu Ghraib is the most obvious and perhaps most far-reaching as an event that provoked Muslim populaces (and continues to do so). An assessment of the strategic effects without accounting for unknowables like Abu Ghraib and other incidents would turn out to be wrong. How useful would such analysis be to you since it would have to be heavily caveated?

In short, I don't believe there is a predictive method or any means, short of being lucky and correctly guessing, that can account for such vagaries, so I have to question the utility of that kind of far-reaching strategic analysis. Since the analysis would be reliant on an extraordinary number of assumptions, it is likely to prove wrong and would provide leaders and policymakers with a false sense of security about the effects of potential actions and policies. Policymakers want the path paved for them. They want intelligence to lift the fog from the future, but Intelligence has limits as a predictive art and science. Intelligence which makes the future only appear less certain is worse than useless - it's dangerous.

Finally, I think there is a general problem when attempting to do analysis across the tactical/strategic divide. What I mean is that it's extremely difficult to predict what will happen at the tactical level based on an analysis of differing strategic alternatives. The reverse is also true - it's extremely difficult to estimate the strategic effect of one tactical course of action vs another. Hope that makes sense.

Steve the Planner
11-07-2009, 09:48 PM
One of the things thaty continues to trouble me is the deep lack of knowledge, insight of Afghanistan as a whole.

I think Andrew Exum did a great job last week of asking, in the Hoh context, for Gilles Dorronsorro, Micheal Semple and Joanne Nathan (deep experts, not generalists) to comment on the concept that someone could take knowledge from one province or district and validly project that to knowledge of Afghanistan or the Region. They were clear that the entire environment was just too complicated and variable to do that---it was not about nuances of differences, but whole measures of different politics, circumstances, relationships, and drivers.

Here, as I understand it, we stand on the brink of a radical change in US focus, from chasing bad guys around the desolate and foreboding eastern rural border to "protecting the population" in large urban areas, each with it's own hugely different and complex politics, socio-economics, and needs.

The deep consequences of such a change is so far removed from a simple road march. Everything about urban deployments requires totally unique challenges, risks, tools, training and approaches.

Alone, the strategic consequences for a military re-deployment from rural to urban is huge, especially where, as Joanne Nathan indicated, we are only good at the military clear part, but with huge impediments to hold and build. The difference between Southern Helmand and Kunduz are more than just geographic, and not to be measured and planned only by the amount of fuel it takes to get there. Even more so as Tajikistan's economy and society continue to collapse, with bleed over to Afghanistan.

Strategy is just not the sum of multiple tactics. Somebody has to set the big course, and provide the training, resources and direction to connect the dots.

William F. Owen
11-08-2009, 06:30 AM
Strategy is just not the sum of multiple tactics. Somebody has to set the big course, and provide the training, resources and direction to connect the dots.

Sorry, that is exactly what strategy is, as concerns the mechanics of how it is applied. Callwell noted (and I agree with him) that strategy should be limited to what was tactically feasible. Hamley made much the point.

Now, I think what you are trying to say is that tactical success does not equate to strategic success. This is true, with Hannibal the Idiot being the primary example - win most battles, and still loose the war. I agree.

The problem is that we do not teach strategy properly. Tactics are the cogs and levers of strategy. Winning at the tactical level is not the be all and end all, IF you can keep fighting long enough to exhaust your opponent.
It requires tactical skill to avoid decisive defeat. Where the Taliban are wining tactically is in their ability to infiltrate forces into the areas they wish to contest, and to keep doing it. That is tactics. The Taliban have substantial freedom of action. That is tactics. The Taliban can initiate attacks mostly when and where they want. That is tactics. The Strategy is to exhaust US/NATO - and they know they can do that because "we" are not going to take the actions that would hurt them. - and I mean "hurt" the Taliban, not "protect the population."

Is "protecting the population" tactically feasible?

davidbfpo
11-08-2009, 12:45 PM
Wilf asked:
Is "protecting the population" tactically feasible?

Mindful of comments on another thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=7128&page=26

In the Afghan context an element of protection is possible in large swathes of the countryside, especially where Pashtuns are a minority so sympathy for the Taliban is less. With urban growth protecting city populations is possible, but very different tactically. Where our strategy has gone wrong is trying to protect an un-willing or neutral rural Pashtun population; why is Helmand Province so vital? Before 2006 there was a tiny ISAF presence and some Afghan government presence.

I am mindful of this thread on Strateic Intelligence duplicating, rightly maybe, other threads.

bellz
11-08-2009, 11:24 PM
So, here is my question: WHAT exactly is strategic intelligence? and why is it so rarely asked for, and even more rarely provided?

I'm new here so let me know if I'm totally off haha.

I think strategic intelligence is so rarely asked for because there is so little strategic decision-making made by policymakers in the U.S. government - especially regarding the GWOT, Afghanistan and Iraq - and therefore the intelligence community has gotten tactically heavy in critical areas of U.S. interests. We have been identifying our strategic post-Cold War national interests now for three administrations (terrorism, human rights, proliferation, etc ) but never are there consistent linkages of these interests to a strategic concept.

While George Kennan’s concept of “Containment” became the fundamental strategy that defined U.S. policies for most of the Cold War; it seems no similar strategic concept can define U.S. policies for the last eight years in the War on Terrorism. U.S. strategy must, but has not so far, be able survive the daily partisan jostling of security politics in Washington and the constantly changing political temperatures in the White House and on Capitol Hill. Short-term operational/tactical policies like killing terrorist leaders, seizing financial resources, deposing state sponsors and destroying training camps have been successful. However, I feel eight years of war and certainly more ahead have shown that these operational and tactical policies are not translating into any strategy. aka what the hell are we going to do in the long-term? We overthrew the Taliban and Saddam and the immediate political and military operations were rather brilliantly conducted - but what were the long-term strategic vision and policies for their new governments? We still have not decided what we want in Afghanistan despite the overwhelming existence of "serious threats to U.S. Interests" - terrorism, human rights violations, drug trafficking, extremism, etc.

I feel this is because policymakers are generally inclined to think in the short-term as they hop from crisis to crisis and deal with politics and election cycles - strategic intelligence of long-term threats and opportunities therefore does them little good compared to short-term policy prescriptions.

Steve the Planner
11-09-2009, 03:33 AM
bellz:

I think that is what Wilf is saying. We don't teach or do strategic-level work---just tactics, the some of which, by default become the accidental strategy.

I continue to scratch my head on Afghanistan.

Here is a country twice the size of Iraq, with huge and highly differentiated geography, resources, peoples, resources and conflicts.

My area of expertise is civilian planning, geography, transportation and demographics. Based on that, I would immediately recognize Afghanistan as part of the basket of Centcom/Africom countries where serious trouble always brews at or below the surface. The kind that warrants significant monitoring, engagement, and, sometimes, intervention.

The demographics of the country, in terms of poverty, health care, life expectancies and birth rates places it at the bottom rungs of the countries of the world (common to the Africom bottom countries).

Looking to just the history of interventions, war, civil war, and intrigues over the past 40 years, it is Megido-like cauldron of instability, irrespective of Al-Qaeda and 9/11. Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan all play into the mix.

Of course, the fact that it is the No. 1 heroin source for Europe, and elsewhere, creates a unique and singular justification for NATO, and possibly US engagement, on many levels.

Setting aside the Al-Qaeda issue, it seems that this place warrants an active and continuing strategy period. And that US interests of some sort will always be here.

Today, we wrestle with what some argue is a failed "mission-creep" into nation-building gone amuck, while, at the same time, we may have stumbled across or into a civil war grounded in a deeper conflict between urban elites in one part of the country vs. the traditional rural folks (like the (Pashtuns) who, because of history, politics, resource issues, demographics and other factors, simply may have exceeded the option to simply live quietly and alone. (Something like the Cherokees facing the settlers, although these folks definitely have less diplomatic skills, not that it may matter).

My theory is that, regardless of 9/11/Al-Qaeda, US interest is continuous and important. But, what is that bigger interest, and its objectives, and the strategy.

Perhaps, in some ways, I see the current situation as a some-what long-running but interim action within a, perhaps, 100 year picture in which periods of war and civil war have and may continue to occur. Over that span, maybe, Pashtunistan becomes a reality, or, as in previous empire carve-ups, Helmand connects to the sea. Who knows?

Similarly, in the current action, our focus was on Pashtun eastern border areas with Pakistan. Lots of tribal and rural. Perhaps now we shift to more urban north and east where much of the tribal lessons are muted, but whole new issues and challenges arise.

Regardless of the tactics, I think there should come a point (if not already passed) where the US is able to define and state its long-run strategic interests with enough clarity to survive the winds of short-term change and develop tactics, as needed, to respond to the overall goal with some basic level of consistency.

Fifty or 100 years, one year at a time, does not seem to be all that productive.

But, that's me.

Steve

Dayuhan
11-09-2009, 03:53 AM
Looking back at the original post, I'd say there's a lack of clarity over the levels of strategy, which may be one factor in the reluctance of military intelligence agencies to provide strategic intelligence and the reluctance of military leaders to ask for it.

The setting of political goals and the development of a political strategy to achieve those goals is generally seen as the province of civilian leadership, and I suspect that it's assumed that "strategic intelligence" has already come into play at this level. Military strategy is one component of an overall political strategy, and even here the goals of military strategy tend to be set (or ignored) at the civilian leadership level. If we assume this, it's natural for the military apparatusd to focus on the tactical means by which strategies established at the civilian leadership can be achieved.

I agree with Wilf that uncertain or excessive goals represent a major problem: somewhere along the line the goal in Afghanistan seems to have changed form eliminating the AQ presence to reconstructing Afghanistan. The first goal may have been achievable, the second... I have my doubts.

bellz
11-09-2009, 07:41 PM
...I would immediately recognize Afghanistan as part of the basket of Centcom/Africom countries where serious trouble always brews at or below the surface. The kind that warrants significant monitoring, engagement, and, sometimes, intervention...[I]t seems that this place warrants an active and continuing strategy period. And that US interests of some sort will always be here.

I agree. I get very confused today when critics of the COIN Afghanistan strategy constantly repeat something along the line of, "What are we going to do in other trouble areas like Yemen and Somalia where al-Qaeda networks are active? Do we go there as well? We can't put 150,000 troops on the ground and rebuild those countries too!"

Well, wherever al-Qaeda or international terrorists go... so should we - even if its Somalia, Yemen or the dam arctic circle.

Its really a straw man argument - NO ONE is proposing we do this because there are plenty of other productive and less costly ways to engage these areas. However, there is really no strategy to deal with these countries - just short term policies. I guess its hard to glean strategic intelligence from areas of such instability since projections can't really go that far without some sort of stable power structure to build analysis on.

Political leaders are usually risk adverse about committing political capital and/or resources to engagement in areas/conflicts they don't understand and "seem" peripheral. Just like how Afghanistan seemed like a backwater in 1992.