Intelligence Collection and Sharing
SWJ Blog - Intelligence Collection and Sharing by CPT Tim Hsia.
Quote:
Years from now after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have ended; historians will pore over the operations and tactics of the U.S. Army during both campaigns. They will likely applaud the all-volunteer force and the courage of the individual soldier; just as likely, however, they will criticize the lack of information sharing and management between the militarily and civilian departments of the U.S. government. Specifically, they will note the military’s poor record in information management, accessibility of intelligence gathered, and the inability to apply years of accumulated intelligence to current battlefield operations. A way to patch the current intelligence gap within the U.S. government would be to adopt an information collection program that accumulates data similar to major internet stock market trackers. Market trackers absorb information continuously, rigorously track trends, and enable traders to formulate decisions based off the latest news combined with historical data. The ability of market trackers to store and quickly recall historical data should be mimicked by the U.S. government so that commanders and diplomats possess relevant records that enable them to make decisions which take into account the economic, historical, cultural, political, anthropological, and environmental aspects of the region they are operating within...
The Human Factor in HUMINT
As I reflect on just how many reports I read, corrected, opined on and contributed to, one thing still sticks in my mind today; the analysts and desk officers at home replying with either ‘of significant intelligence value’ or ‘of no intelligence value’.
The often-overlooked common denominator was the source’s spin on the report. Typical OB for example is in and of itself boring, especially to an individual who has never been to country X, or perhaps barely understands why all those numbers are relevant today, but weren’t a week ago.
I would be very concerned about openly sharing ‘raw or analyzed intel’ when the user is Joe the ordinary soldier, with no skills in comprehending or applying said in a country and/or culture he/she doesn’t fully understand in the first place.
Battle of Baghdad I, II, III, ....
Thanks for the feedback on the article. To clarify, the intent of the article was not to imply that raw information is the end all and be all. Additionally, thorough scrutiny and analysis of intelligence will always be necessary.
The problem I sought to highlight is the fact that there is simply no overarching information network collection and sharing for units in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army is oftentimes accused of fighting the last war, but in essence we are fighting the last battle because we aren't keeping information and properly passing it on to units that will operate in a region 2-3 years from now. Think about how many times we have fought the "battle of Baghdad, Mosul, Falluja, Baqubah, etc..." What is happening, is units redeploy back home and all their information is lost and irretrievable to units who operate in that very same region 6-12 months down the road. This is compounded when units are being shifted continuously. All of that intelligence from the mundane (terrain, trafficability, key terrain, census info) to key data (important sheikhs, imams, cell network) has to all be researched and mapped out again.
Living, Breathing, Entity
One thing that has always bothered me when entering any new environment is that it is exactly that, an environment. Made up of all the social interactions, politics, etc which serve to make it unique.
There really should not be so much difficulty in at least maintaining the outline or shadow of that particular social enclave considering that travel companies have been putting together travel guides for such a long time.
A travel guide is not supposed to be able to tell you everything you need to know about an area but it sure enough gets you into the vicinity of understanding what and who to look for / to.
I know several individuals who have made a good effort in providing exactly this kind of thing and we can only hope that would continue.
Gathering and holding information isn't the problem, getting it where it is available to those who need it is where the answers can be found.