bourbon, thanks for sharing this article. While in no way meaning to degrade or insult the excellent work our intelligent analysts do, intelligence analysis based on classified information (which is frequently just as questionable as unclassified information) often lacks critical context, especially historical context. And as in any other organization ideas tend to go viral and become accepted wisdom, even when they're incorrect. It is harder to correct the record when the idea is based on classified that not all the analysts (or subject matter experts) have access to.

OSINT is an underused discipline in my view. I think part of the blame for our shortfalls is in our process, where commanders want dumbed down summaries on targets without context, so the intell community (not all of it, but definitely on the pointy end of the tactical spear) becomes target fixated, and they miss the bigger picture, a picture that may indicate their targeting process needs to be adjusted to have the desired effect.