HUMINT, Informants and more (merged thread)

[marct]

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FM 2-91.6 Soldier Surveillance and Reconnaissance: Fundamentals of Tactical Information Collection, Revised Final Draft, June 2007

Argh! Another AKO restricted one that I'd like to read. Oh well, I'll just wait a couple of days and see if I can download it off one of the irhabist sites .

[Steve Blair]

Argh! Another AKO restricted one that I'd like to read. Oh well, I'll just wait a couple of days and see if I can download it off one of the irhabist sites .

Yeah...gotta love some of the stuff they put behind AKO these days (Armor magazine...come on....).

[Jedburgh]

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Note: Also requires access to the Draft MI Doctrine KC.

TC 2-22.306 HUMINT Support To Targeting in COIN (Initial Draft)

[Jedburgh]

SSI, 21 Aug 07: Negotiation in the New Strategic Environment: Lessons from Iraq

U.S. soldiers in Iraq—from junior to senior leaders—conduct thousands of negotiations with Iraqi leaders while pursuing tactical and operational objectives that affect the strategic import of the U.S. mission in that country. As long as U.S. troops operate under conditions like the ones they currently face while at the same time conducting a counterinsurgency and stability, security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operation in Iraq, negotiation will be a common activity and an important part of achieving mission objectives. Lessons from experience negotiating in Iraq can be helpful in future operations.

This monograph argues that the negotiations conducted in Iraq have tactical importance, operational significance, and strategic implications because of the daily role they play in the missions U.S. soldiers conduct while attempting to secure neighborhoods, strengthen political institutions, acquire information and intelligence, and gain cooperation. The aggregate effect of so many successful or failed negotiations has an impact on the ability of the U.S. military to accomplish its operational mission there efficiently and effectively as well as meet American strategic goals.

The armed services have centers for lessons learned, combat training centers, and a variety of schools for continued training and development of their soldiers and leaders, but there has been no formal study of the negotiating experience that U.S. military officers and noncommissioned officers have gained and the lessons they have learned over the course of their tours in Iraq or Afghanistan that applies the broader field of negotiation theory and its literature to the practical needs of the U.S. military in conducting those negotiations. This monograph attempts to fill the gap by (1) analyzing negotiations described in narrative interviews with U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers recently returned from deployments to Iraq, and (2) examining the predeployment training currently conducted at the U.S. Army’s National Training Center....

I put this under HUMINT because for several years this was a pet project of mine - the applicability of negotiation skills to military ops. As a HUMINT NCO operating in the MidEast, on too many occasions to count I found myself involved in negotiations with the indig; sometimes pushed forward by the commander simply because I spoke the language, sometimes by request of the indig as an American rep in an otherwise isolated area, and other instances simply by the exigencies of the situation.

My opinion then, as now, was that negotiation is simply another facet of the key HUMINT skill of manipulative human communications - negotiation falls right in with interrogation, interview, debriefing, elicitation, mediation, etc.

In-between deployments I sought out training and educational opportunities to explore that relationship in depth - business negotatiation and "alternative dispute resolution" courses along the lines of Harvard's Program on Negotiation, attending the Bureau's Crisis Negotiation course, and service as a volunteer on crisis hotlines and a community victim-offender mediation program as time and optempo permitted. My command supported me to a degree; but on a couple of occasions they just provided me time through permissive TDY, but all costs came out of pocket. I even wrote a couple of papers linking negotiation skills to operational HUMINT, but they just disappeared without substantive response. In the end, at no point during my time in service did I find real support for inclusion of negotiation training with other HUMINT skills.

[Tom Odom]

The armed services have centers for lessons learned, combat training centers, and a variety of schools for continued training and development of their soldiers and leaders, but there has been no formal study of the negotiating experience that U.S. military officers and noncommissioned officers have gained and the lessons they have learned over the course of their tours in Iraq or Afghanistan that applies the broader field of negotiation theory and its literature to the practical needs of the U.S. military in conducting those negotiations. This monograph attempts to fill the gap by (1) analyzing negotiations described in narrative interviews with U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers recently returned from deployments to Iraq, and (2) examining the predeployment training currently conducted at the U.S. Army’s National Training Center....

Hmmm we have been doing negotiations STX lanes for 5 years now and we were doing similar exerciese for the Balkans MREs. He went to NTC versus JRTC so he went to the wrong place. So now he wants more training? Everyone wants more training on everything...

The thing he misses completely is the same thing most miss on this subject:

There is a very real difference between consult and negotiate. Most try and say negotiations cover consultations. They do not. Consultations may or may not have an agenda. I may want to sound some one out but I am not tring to win points in the process. That is a consultation or a conversation.

The problem with negotiations "fits all" is that too many leaders do it by the numbers and on the negotiations "checklist" it says "get want you want." It is an art and it takes some time to develop one's style.

Tom

[Jedburgh]

Hmmm we have been doing negotiations STX lanes for 5 years now and we were doing similar exerciese for the Balkans MREs. He went to NTC versus JRTC so he went to the wrong place. So now he wants more training? Everyone wants more training on everything...

I was also able to include effective operational scenario-based negotiations exercises during various types of training exercises conducted at unit-level where I was assigned at different times. However, my point is that (in my personal, biased opinion) I feel that this is an integral part of the HUMINT skill set, and thus deserves to be covered by formal training at the schoolhouse.

...The problem with negotiations "fits all" is that too many leaders do it by the numbers and on the negotiations "checklist" it says "get want you want." It is an art and it takes some time to develop one's style...

As I stated earlier, negotiation being just one facet of manipulative human communications, it shares that key characteristic of interrogation and all the other related skills - not everyone can do it effectively. There are plenty of people that can go through all the training available, but when it comes down to it on the ground, they just can't do it effectively. And far too many with responsibilities working with the indig in this area tend to fall back on the worst type of positional negotiation - just hammer away and intimidate until you "get what you want".

[Tom Odom]

I was also able to include effective operational scenario-based negotiations exercises during various types of training exercises conducted at unit-level where I was assigned at different times. However, my point is that (in my personal, biased opinion) I feel that this is an integral part of the HUMINT skill set, and thus deserves to be covered by formal training at the schoolhouse.

As I stated earlier, negotiation being just one facet of manipulative human communications, it shares that key characteristic of interrogation and all the other related skills - not everyone can do it effectively. There are plenty of people that can go through all the training available, but when it comes down to it on the ground, they just can't do it effectively. And far too many with responsibilities working with the indig in this area tend to fall back on the worst type of positional negotiation - just hammer away and intimidate until you "get what you want".

To borrow from Mark O'Neil, you and I are in violent agreement. My concerns are with this study and its clamor for more "negotiations" training when it is not clear what exactly the term "negotiations" means and who actually needs more training.

Again we are are in 110% agreement on the issue of this is an art and it needs indepth training--HUMINT guys are natural candidates for it. Where I would broaden this is what I said earlier about consultations. Damn few officers I meet these days have good listening skills--and that makes them piss poor communicators/negotiators/interlocutors. Too many ask questions and then answer them preemptively without ever listening to the response. That is a CRITICAL skill and it is one fading from our ranks.

Best

Tom