Intelligence, Data, COIN and CT

National Security Watch: Collecting Data for the Fight

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When Capt. Jason Feser first arrived in the northern Iraq city of Mosul for his yearlong tour of duty, he found that his headquarters was drowning in information. In the fast-paced environment of Mosul, where soldiers were tracking an adaptable and persistent insurgency in the ancient city, it was hard to keep up with the threats.

Individual commanders in Mosul were running their own intelligence collection operations and nobody was charged with putting it all together in one place. One military intelligence team was building its own database of local political and neighborhood leaders. The chaplains kept track of the religious leaders. And other soldiers were cataloguing the city's hospitals and clinics. After suggesting to his commanders that someone gather all the data in one place, Feser got the job.

This made perfect sense. Feser was running a four-man team under the 25th Infantry Division in charge of the burgeoning discipline of geospatial intelligence, which involves developing complex maps from satellite images and other sources. At a San Antonio conference on geospatial intelligence, Feser described how he cobbled together one single database from 19 separate collections of information.

The final product was a massive trove of intelligence, including details on mosques, religious leaders, hospitals, and important Iraqi tribal leaders. Everything could be mapped out, block by block, throughout the city. Feser's four-man team produced everything from tailored maps for specific operations to analytical reports on patterns of roadside bombs.

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One of my pet intelligence peeves seems to be making positive strides on the local level - not at the operational or strategic level... Now we need to make sure this data is available horizontally and for relief in place...

Dave,

I saw this one via AKO.

"The No. 1 one weakness of terrorists—they have to brag," says Feser. "They videotape it and publish it."

So his team would scour the videotapes and, using advanced mapping technologies and other tools, determine which building, and sometimes which window, the video was shot from. He did the same kind of work on mortar attacks. The work hit home when one of his friends was killed by a round that landed on top of his trailer, which happened to be right next to Feser's trailer."

While I applaud his initiative, he should read his own presentation in light of operational security.

Best,
Tom

Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror : Military Culture and Irregular War, LTC ROBERT M. CASSIDY

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Originally Posted by Amazon.com

Since September 2001, the United States has waged what the government initially called the "global war on terrorism (GWOT)." Beginning in late 2005 and early 2006, the term Long War began to appear in U.S. security documents such as the National Security Council's National Strategy for Victory in Iraq and in statements by the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the JCS. The description Long War--unlimited in time and space and continuing for decades--is closer to reality and more useful than GWOT. Colonel Robert Cassidy argues that this protracted struggle is more correctly viewed as a global insurgency and counterinsurgency. Al Qaeda and its affiliates, he maintains, comprise a novel and evolving form of networked insurgents who operate globally, harnessing the advantages of globalization and the information age. They employ terrorism as a tactic, subsuming terror within their overarching aim of undermining the Western-dominated system of states. Placing the war against al Qaeda and its allied groups and organizations in the context of a global insurgency has vital implications for doctrine, interagency coordination, and military cultural change-all reviewed in this important work. Cassidy combines the foremost maxims of the most prominent Western philosopher of war and the most renowned Eastern philosopher of war to arrive at a threefold theme: know the enemy, know yourself, and know what kind of war you are embarking upon. To help readers arrive at that understanding, he first offers a distilled analysis of al Qaeda and its associated networks, with a particular focus on ideology and culture. In subsequent chapters, he elucidates the challenges big powers face when they prosecute counterinsurgencies, using historical examples from Russian, American, British, and French counterinsurgent wars before 2001. The book concludes with recommendations for the integration and command and control of indigenous forces and other agencies.

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Releases April 30, 2006

The Threat Open Source Information Gateway (TOSIG) has begun producing a new report, titled the Insurgency Literature Review. It is intended to become a monthly pub for the review of insurgency and COIN-related journals, books, research projects, scholars, conferences, web sites, etc.

You can register for access at: http://www.tosig.com/sample/signupform/signupform.asp

14 August Washington Times - Military at Odds on Intel Methods by Rowan Scarborough.

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U.S. Central Command has been resisting suggestions from the Pentagon on how to revamp intelligence collection in Iraq, according to people familiar with the dispute.

The defense sources said Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, a key deputy, have been pressing the command to change the way that intelligence is gleaned from insurgent strongholds and to increase the type of information that is collected.

But according to these sources, the command, whose intelligence chief is Brig. Gen. John M. Custer III, prefers the current Joint Intelligence Operations Centers (JIOC).

"If it is not invented at Central Command, it is not welcomed," said a source familiar with the internal debate, who referred to the disagreement as a "turf battle."

A second source said, "We want to know everything the insurgency is doing at any given time. ... Central Command resists everything unless they came up with it."

Mr. Cambone's department wants the Baghdad command to put more intelligence resources into neighborhoods where the insurgents operate in hopes of finding the perpetrators before the next suicide bombing or the placement of improvised explosive devices.

The dispute comes as the importance of taking down the insurgent cells -- or at least reducing the number of attacks -- is reaching a critical point. Gen. John Abizaid, Central Command chief, told the Senate Armed Services Committee two weeks ago that he has never seen sectarian violence at such a high level in Baghdad. Privately, military officials worry that they are running out of time in Iraq, with diminishing support from Washington politicians and the American public.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has placed great emphasis on improving the military's intelligence capabilities. He created Mr. Cambone's post in 2003 as a way to initiate reform throughout the Defense Department's intelligence community. The network includes the Defense Intelligence Agency and units inside the military branches...

Terrorism analysts Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Roy Godson wrote in the Weekly Standard last week that returning special operations commanders still complain that intelligence collection in Iraq is spotty. They quoted one commander as saying the joint intelligence center would give them the location of a neighborhood where insurgents hid. He said that his men could spend all day trying to find them and that what he needed was the exact address.

"The military men we talked to ... all said the same thing: When we're spending $40 billion a year on intelligence and committing 150,000 men to the Iraqi front, why can't we create the actionable intelligence required to roll up the insurgents?" the two wrote...

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Got this via e-mail today:

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Dear Colleague,

You may be aware that Interaction Systems Incorporated (ISI) has a prototype, limited-access Web site (the Threats Open Source Intelligence Gateway, at www.tosig.com) on which we regularly post, among other things, copies of all of ISI’s regular reports on global threats. All articles posted on TOSIG have been reformatted from their original, e-mailed versions, and broken down into individual articles that are hyperlinked. Reports are posted soon after their initial publication into an archive that includes the entire collection of ISI's past reports. If you are not a TOSIG visitor, you may register for access at www.tosig.com. We greatly appreciate your continued interest in our research and reporting. Best wishes concerning your work to understand and cope with the proliferating and increasingly complex array of global threats.

Best wishes,

Jarod


Jarod A. Holtz
Research Associate
Interaction Systems Incorporated
isincreports@mindspring.com

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Maybe Small Wars Journal readers are familiar with it, but I finished reading Orrin DeForest's Slow Burn and it is excellent. The book was recommended to me by a Lt. Col. serving with the COIN center in Tel Afar. I highly endorse it to anyone who is interested in how to build operational intelligence in a COIN environment.

Impressive array of accomplishments. Of course, in the VN context, this CIA operation would not have been successful if it were not a unilateral one....Which is why the CORDS-advised Gov't of VN Phoenix/Phuong-Huang program was not successful despite best efforts of the advisers, as DeForest honestly and correctly points out. CIA, by the way, was a critical COIN player that was, because of operational necessity, not included under CORDS.

Cheers,
Mike.

RAND, 26 Sep 07: Byting Back: Regaining Information Superiority Against 21st-Century Insurgents

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Armed conflict has always made serious demands on information, whether it is about the disposition of our own forces or the intentions and status of the adversary’s. With the advent of modern information systems, the management of information about friend and foe has become a key determinant of how armed conflict plays out. The Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) information architecture for conventional warfare reflects that fact.

Counterinsurgency, though, differs from conventional warfare. First, whereas the battles in conventional war are waged between dedicated armed forces, the battles of counterinsurgency are waged for and among the people, the central prize in counterinsurgency. Collecting information about the population is much more important than it is in conventional warfare. Second, the community that conducts counterinsurgency crosses national and institutional boundaries. U.S. and indigenous forces must work together. So, too, must military forces, security forces (notably police), and providers of other government services. Sharing information across these lines, thus, has a greater importance than in conventional warfare.

An integrated counterinsurgency operating network (ICON) should, therefore, be different than that which DoD has built for conventional warfare. In this monograph, we outline the principles and salient features of ICON.....

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Canadian Army Journal, Winter '08: To Provide Focus: Intelligence and Counterinsurgency

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From Large Formations....

In a conventional scenario, military intelligence focuses on a larger view of the enemy with minimal impact from individuals. In this context, intelligence is interested in where the enemy forces are and what capabilities they have in terms of equipment and strength. Cold War intelligence doctrine was heavily influenced by the American AirLand Battle doctrine, which required “rapid intelligence analysis to identify quickly the enemy main effort as far away as possible to give US Army maneuver units time to shift laterally from across the front in mass.” The current intelligence doctrine and practices of today still reflect this Cold War mentality.

The current intelligence doctrine is focused on fighting a conventional adversary and is based on four assumptions. The first is that the process needs to focus on the terrain and the enemy only. The second is that the adversary is an organized force conducting combat operations. The third is that an extensive intelligence database on that adversary already exists. The last assumption is that any analysis, supported by the use of templates, would predict the enemy’s potential courses of action. This is based on a top-down approach, which was “originally designed to identify large enemy organizations from [their] parts, and the enemy intentions from a study of stable doctrine, long-term unit positioning, common equipment capability, and terrain limitations.” By focusing first on analyzing and identifying the details of a situation, it was then expected that the big picture would quickly emerge.

....To Individuals

In a counter-insurgency scenario, the focus changes from large enemy formations to individuals. The threat is typically composed of small groups, mixed with and difficult to distinguish from the local population. The intelligence focus, therefore, revolves around providing an understanding of the operational environment in order to facilitate the identification of the factors driving the insurgency and to provide information on those conditions and ways to alleviate them. In addition, intelligence must aim at finding: who are the key players; what are their connections (alliances, organizations, associates) and what do they want to do? To be efficient, therefore, intelligence processes and doctrine need to be adjusted to the specific nature of counter-insurgency operations. In other words, based on American, British, Canadian and Australian doctrine on counterinsurgency, as well as the recent lessons learned from Afghanistan and Iraq, what are the intelligence characteristics in counter-insurgency?

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Originally Posted by Jedburgh

Canadian Army Journal, Winter '08: To Provide Focus: Intelligence and Counterinsurgency

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makes the movement.

Unsure if this has been posted previously or not. Pretty informative and gaining with wiki-type data from the field as well...

http://www.nps.edu/Programs/CCS/

https://www.intelink.gov/inteldocs/b...fFolderId=8568

Vic,

While we are on the topic of Afghanistan, how about some low-tech electricity solutions for places with temperature issues...

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Using Water Turbines in Alaska

If you have a steady year-round source of running water near your remote cabin or home, water generators can provide the most constant and reliable alternative power source. However, special precautions need to be taken to protect the turbine during winter freeze-up and spring break-up, and some measure must be taken to keep the system from freezing during winter.

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Regards,

Steve

RAND, 10 Jun 08: Analytic Support to Intelligence in Counterinsurgencies

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....This monograph presents a broad range of analytic techniques that can be used to support the security portion of counterinsurgency operations. Its purpose is not to discuss the broader elements of counterinsurgency, such as nation-building and improvements to governance in nations threatened with insurgency. Instead, it combines research supporting two complementary studies: one focused on ways to improve U.S. counterinsurgency capabilities and a second aimed at developing operational analysis techniques to defeat improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The first study provides a framework for thinking about the nature of an insurgency and the latter then examines operational analysis techniques to answer the operational and tactical counterinsurgency questions that evolve at each stage in the insurgency.....

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From Large Formations....

....To Individuals

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So would the statement that "Intelligence should be aimed at supporting the FIND function, within a Core Functions context" be incorrect?

Wilf,

From my armchair and having read both papers in full - the FIND role is a core function.

Incidentally the RAND diagram on phases in insurgent / terrorist planning is excellent and should be on the wall in an intelligence cell etc.

davidbfpo

An interesting book from NDU I ran across today and skimmed:

Registering the Human Terrains: A Valuation of Cadastre

Abstract:

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Land is often a significant factor in widespread violence and is also a critical element in peace-building and economic reconstruction in post-conflict situations. This book examines how cadastral information (land and property records) can predict threats to regional stability, world peace, and national sovereignty. Beyond its application to the refugee situation six years into Afghanistan’s reconstruction, cadastral data can also aid in recovery from natural disasters or wars. The book considers how causes of 21st century conflicts are related to land questions, and it introduces a new land administration tool. Significant inventiveness on the part of Lemmen, Augustinus, van Oosterom, and van der Molen has resulted in the Land Administration Domain Model (LADM). The LADM is compelling because it makes explicit various types of land rights, restrictions, or responsibilities. It is flexible enough to record both Western-style, registered land rights and customary, informal socio-tenure relationships typical of the developing world. In a word, the LADM aspires to address the myriad land issues faced by civil-military Reconstruction and Stability personnel in postconflict societies. It merits close attention by NATO, the U.S. State and Defense Departments, and USAID because it represents one of the most important tools
for countries where land administration has been weak or totally absent.

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The book uses Afghanistan as a case study.

In scanning the index, I'm struck by what a solid piece of academic research that volume appears to be.

I've downloaded and will get to it when possible.

Entropy thanks for posting.;)This is a Strategic paper. It is a key part of SBW (Slapout Based Warfare) and I was shocked to something like this in print. The people are not the COG !!!! It is the land with the people and how they interact with it. IMHO this is a war winning paper.


Norfolk: remember my paper about Strategy....Seize Terrain That has Political Value!!!!!

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Originally Posted by slapout9

Entropy thanks for posting.;)This is a Strategic paper. It is a key part of SBW (Slapout Based Warfare) and I was shocked to something like this in print. The people are not the COG !!!! It is the land with the people and how they interact with it. IMHO this is a war winning paper.


Norfolk: remember my paper about Strategy....Seize Terrain That has Political Value!!!!!

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If you haven't yet, you really should put out a SBW reading list!

Entropy, I will have to work on that list:wry:

Entropy, to get you started he is a link to place based policing...it's focus is on micro-geography. A lot of this would apply to COIN I think. It is not just the paper I like but it matches a lot of my personal LE experience.
Would also go well with a paper Jedburgh posted awhile back called Ungoverned Spaces.

http://www.policefoundation.org/pdf/...edpolicing.pdf

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Originally Posted by slapout9

Entropy thanks for posting.;)This is a Strategic paper. It is a key part of SBW (Slapout Based Warfare) and I was shocked to something like this in print. The people are not the COG !!!! It is the land with the people and how they interact with it. IMHO this is a war winning paper.(Emphasis added Ron H)


Norfolk: remember my paper about Strategy....Seize Terrain That has Political Value!!!!!

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But Slap we gonna have to go at it on this one.
I'm gonna read the book and get some points to debate on but I'll start out with this. Focus on capturing physical terrain such as land or even infrastructure is effective but not the COG. Reason being it simply provides job security for the armed force by creating a requirement to maintain that control. The people on the other hand own the land, the jobs, the causes, basically any factor which contributes to the end result of any given operations.

If you can define a way in which terrain (other than people) guarantees a particular action works both in gaining against the enemy and gaining buyin from the people long term even after your gone then I might be persuaded.

From what I can see though if your first focus isn't on the people and how to get them involved in the process thus leading to more informed and effective knowledge of what needs to be secured/destroyed/embraced/or just plain left alone; then your SWAG's tend to be be a lot more wild guesses and a lot less informed moves.

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Originally Posted by Ron Humphrey

But Slap we gonna have to go at it on this one.
I'm gonna read the book and get some points to debate on but I'll start out with this. Focus on capturing physical terrain such as land or even infrastructure is effective but not the COG. Reason being it simply provides job security for the armed force by creating a requirement to maintain that control. The people on the other hand own the land, the jobs, the causes, basically any factor which contributes to the end result of any given operations.

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Hi Ron, My point was/is it's the people and the terrain "together" (which is what geography used to be about when I was in school) that equal the COG...you just said it better then me.

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Originally Posted by slapout9

Hi Ron, My point was/is it's the people and the terrain "together" (which is what geography used to be about when I was in school) that equal the COG...you just said it better then me.

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Just as long as those setting forth the path don't allow the different parties to claim responsibility for one of the two and expect a different party to handle the other

Example:
Lanes, Not my job its yours, I'll take the ground then you diplomacize:eek:.

I haven't read the book, but I am suspicious of overly rationalized Western models for dealing with issues like land. On one hand, there is data and it lends itself to analysis and problem solving, but in my experience, that's the smaller part of the picture. Land administration and laws are paramount and a database of information, while useful, doesn't deal with the issues around the value of land (money), corruption, identity issues and so on...untangling property rights in some of these countries is a nightmare. I have a friend in Cambodia that owns a piece of land up by Siem Reap which was essentially siezed and squatted on by local authorities. She has a deed to the land, but it's not helping her much. She has no recourse beyond physically kicking off the squatter(s).

RAND, 27 Jan 09: Assessing Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Intelligence Analysis

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The aim of this study was to assist the Department of the Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) in better understanding the intelligence analytic requirements of irregular warfare (IW). To do this, we were to develop an analytic framework for IW that could be used as the basis for an educational and training curriculum that would enhance NGIC analysts’ capabilities for assessing IW situations.

In December 2006, after considering a number of alternative definitions for irregular warfare and acknowledging the many conceptual and other challenges associated with trying to define this term with precision, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the following definition:

A violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population.

Definitions aside, large numbers of academic, doctrinal, and other publications stress that the outcomes of IW situations depend on both the level of one’s understanding of the population and the deftness with which non-military and indirect means are employed to influence and build legitimacy. Accordingly, the study team’s principal efforts were devoted to developing an analytic framework for understanding IW situations, whether population-centric (such as counterinsurgency) or counterterrorism, that focused on “irregular features” of the operating environment—that is, the central environmental and operational variables whose interplay determines the overall trajectory of an irregular conflict toward either success or failure......

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CIA, Undated (FOIA release 5 Jan 09): Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency

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This pamphlet contains key definitions and analytic guides applicable to any insurgency. Analysts with the knowledge of the political, military and socio-economic characteristics of a specific insurgency will find these definitions and frameworks helpful in evaluating the major components of the conflict. Among other things, this guide is designed to assist in conducting a net assessment of the overall status or progress of a specific conflict.

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In New Military, Data Overload Can Be Deadly

Entry Excerpt:

In New Military, Data Overload Can Be Deadly by Thom Shanker and Matt Richtel, New York Times. BLUF: "As the technology allows soldiers to pull in more information, it strains their brains. And military researchers say the stress of combat makes matters worse. Some research even suggests that younger people wind up having more trouble focusing because they have grown up constantly switching their attention."

NGIC, 24 Nov 09: Complex Environments - An Alternative Approach to the Assessment of Insurgencies and their Social Terrain
Part 1: Identifying Decisive Factors

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This assessment is the first in a two-part series that outlines additional principles for intelligence preparation of the operational environment (IPOE), information operations (IO), and strategic intelligence assessment. This assessment represents an alternative to many current approaches to behavioral and motivational assessment. The approach uses widely replicated findings from psychology and neuroscience research to explain and assess the likelihood and impact of large-scale and/or significant changes in the behavior of large populations. This assessment outlines why many current approaches to analyzing the likelihood and impact of popular movements, while often useful, lead to problems in both analysis and implementation. It also defines a viable alternative for explaining, forecasting, and making decisions about populations. The second assessment in the series will lay out specific, practical guidelines for implementing the approach described in this assessment.

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NGIC, 31 Mar 10: Complex Environments - An Alternative Approach to the Assessment of Insurgencies and Their Social Terrain
Part 2: Constraint-Based Analytic Procedures

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This assessment offers and explains a new set of analytic procedures for assessing the behavior of local populations (LPs). It is based on the approach set out in Complex Environments - An Alternative Approach to the Assessment of Insurgencies and their Social Terrain Part 1: Identifying Decisive Factors. The procedures identify and analyze LP behavior in a way that facilitates the capability to target and to alter the influences that make the behavior likely. The procedures are designed to achieve both the short-term goal of minimizing undesirable behaviors and the long-term goal of encouraging desirable behaviors, particularly by improving the ability to derive decision advantage from LP intelligence.

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The Statistical Irrelevance of American SIGACT Data: Iraq Surge Analysis Reveals Reality

Entry Excerpt:

The Statistical Irrelevance of American SIGACT Data: Iraq Surge Analysis Reveals Reality
by Joshua Thiel

Download The Full Article: The Statistical Irrelevance of American SIGACT Data:

Maneuver warfare at its core is a mechanistic endeavor and fits with a corresponding necessity of top-down hierarchies. Conversely, counterinsurgency is a more ambiguous environment that varies in its complexity and context; it is the chess match of war. It is different in every locale and can cover the entire spectrum of war simultaneously. Consequently, counterinsurgency is difficult to put on a bumper sticker, to trademark as a catch phrase, or sell to a population and their representatives. In 2006 the United States (U.S.) public’s perception of success or failure of the Iraqi counterinsurgency strategy was concentrated around the concept of massing combat power in time and space, often called the “The Surge.” The term, “The Surge,” condensed a new counterinsurgency strategy into a simple and quantifiable slogan for the sound bite culture surrounding current affairs in the modern world. Unfortunately, counterinsurgency is more complex than “add more and then you win.”

Download The Full Article: The Statistical Irrelevance of American SIGACT Data:

Major Joshua Thiel is a United States Army Special Forces Officer and a recent graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School with a Masters of Science in Defense Analysis. He is currently serving in 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne).



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Human Intelligence in Counterinsurgency: Persistent Pathologies in the Collector-Consumer Relationship

Entry Excerpt:

Human Intelligence in Counterinsurgency: Persistent Pathologies in the Collector-Consumer Relationship
by Michael Gallagher

Download the Full Article: Human Intelligence in Counterinsurgency: Persistent Pathologies in the Collector-Consumer Relationship

In the realm of counterinsurgency (COIN), the currency is intelligence. In other words—as the Counterinsurgency Field Manual succinctly puts it—intelligence drives operations. “Good” intelligence provides precision, helping the counterinsurgent eliminate insurgents from the populace “like surgeons cutting out cancerous tissue while keeping other vital organs intact.” Within this surgical effort, Human Intelligence (HUMINT) proves uniquely valuable; it can obtain information that more technologically-oriented assets cannot. Thus, while all counterinsurgents collect operational reporting as they perform their daily functions—what is frequently termed “passive” collection—HUMINT requires “active” collectors who are specially trained to conduct military source operations and interrogations.

Download the Full Article: Human Intelligence in Counterinsurgency: Persistent Pathologies in the Collector-Consumer Relationship

Michael Gallagher is a Captain in the Marine Corps and currently a fellow in the Junior Officer Strategic Intelligence Program. He deployed twice to Iraq as a Human Intelligence Exploitation Team Commander.



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The atrocities of war often seem random. But when it comes to insurgent attacks in Afghanistan or Iraq, that's not exactly the case, says Neil Johnson, a physicist at the University of Miami. Johnson tells Guy Raz, host of weekends on All Things Considered, about the equation his team has developed that predicts when such attacks will happen.

"We found ... that there was a kind of rhyme and reason behind the numbers," he says. "They weren't just accelerating, they were accelerating in a particular way."

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http://www.npr.org/2011/07/31/138639...physicist-says

Military Intelligence Fusion for Complex Operations

Illuminating the Structure: Intelligence in the Development of CT Strategy

Fitting Intelligence to the Fight: Lessons from Afghanistan

Via FP's Situation Report, a plea for civil & military veterans of Afghanistan to participate in a survey for the at Arizona State:

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...is developing a database for lessons learned from Afghanistan in the hopes that those lessons learned don't have to be re-learned. The "Afghanistan Data Initiative, a robust, fact-based, data-driven analysis of what happened in Afghanistan, but the Institute is doing it without imposing any preconceived ideological or political framework....We hope to disseminate this raw, fact-based information, providing a resource for future research and study, allowing others to draw conclusions and make better decisions in the future. In the long-term, we expect that this data set will serve as a resource for future research and academic study......Please take part in our survey to help ensure that the experiences and sacrifices of you and thousands of others like you are not lost to history, but recorded and learned from for the future."

They want honest answers and won't attribute comments of poll participants to the public arena. It takes about 25 minutes to complete.

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Link to survey:https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6B67866

What is the McCain Institute? From their website:

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The Mission of the McCain Institute at ASU is to advance leadership based on security, economic opportunity, freedom, and human dignity, in the United States and around the world.

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Link:http://mccaininstitute.org/

I have emailed them to tell them SWJ / SWC exists!:wry:

Intelligence in Complex Environments

Beyond Finding the Enemy: Embracing Sociocultural Intelligence in Stability Operations

Intelligence Planning and Methods Employed: Operation Red Dawn - The Capture of Saddam Hussein

Identity and Biometrics Enabled Intelligence (BEI) Sharing for Transnational Threat Actors

Actually the full title of the article, on Strife - a Kings War Studies blog - is 'Turning technology from an asset into a liability: using big data to fight ISIS' and this post will be copied to the ISIS & Media thread later.
Link:https://strifeblog.org/2016/04/01/tu...to-fight-isis/

The author's arguments are weakened IMHO by sentences like this:

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However, sketching using big data analytics can define some widely-valid characteristics. For instance, ISIS recruits tend to be predominantly young and male and the ones originating in the EU and the US tend to come from a middle class background, with a high level of education.

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Really? We need 'big data' to tell us that?

So IARPA facial recognition programme exists, but human can be an alternative as today's story shows, with the Met Police in London:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...ucci-caught-b/

There are those, also @ Kings, who have found terrorist use of the Dark Web is not that great:http://www.scmagazineuk.com/report-t...rticle/485969/

There are a number of recent posts, mainly from SWJ Blog, on 'big data' in the context of urban operations or in mega-cities on the thread: Urban / City Warfare (merged thread)

Or:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...p?t=310&page=7

I have amended the thread's title from Intelligence, Data and COIN adding CT.

More of an update after recent terrorist attacks in the UK and it fits here. It ends with:

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The data is there. But, on at least three fateful occasions, the expert analysis has gone missing.

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Link:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ence-overload?

David Wells, ex-Australian & UK intelligence analyst and now with the UN, has this short article and opens with an explanation:

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Today I’m going to be looking at one specific element of this subject – how intelligence agencies might use artificial intelligence to help navigate the ever-growing data pool they’re faced with. It has the potential to be a complex subject matter. I’m going to try to keep it as simple as possible, and focus on the implications for practitioners, not the technical ins and outs.
I want to briefly answer three quite big questions: Firstly, why? What elements within the current counter-terrorism climate point towards the need for AI? Secondly, how this might work in practice? I’m going to focus specifically on one element of counter-terrorism, covert online interaction with extremistsAnd finally, I’ll look at the advantages but just as importantly, disadvantages associated with this approach.

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Link:http://www.voxpol.eu/can-ai-help-us-...orist-attacks/

Taking a contrary view a Danish academic says

The Abstract with my emphasis:

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Can terrorist attacks be predicted and prevented using classification algorithms? Can predictive analytics see the hidden patterns and data tracks in the planning of terrorist acts? According to a number of IT firms that now offer programs to predict terrorism using predictive analytics, the answer is yes. According to scientific and application-oriented literature, however, these programs raise a number of practical, statistical and recursive problems. In a literature review and discussion, this paper examines specific problems involved in predicting terrorism. The problems include the opportunity cost of false positives/false negatives, the statistical quality of the prediction and the self-reinforcing, corrupting recursive effects of predictive analytics, since the method lacks an inner meta-model for its own learning- and pattern-dependent adaptation. The conclusion is algorithms don’t work for detecting terrorism and is ineffective, risky and inappropriate, with potentially 100,000 false positives for every real terrorist that the algorithm finds.

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Link:http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php...view/7126/6522

OPSEC so bad I nearly spit out my beer.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/us-...ion-by-jogging

A recently published short paper (22 pgs) by the US SOUniversity.
Link:https://jsou.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=45643411