Intelligence, Data, COIN and CT

[davidbfpo]

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

[Jedburgh]

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

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......

[Jedburgh]

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

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.

[Jedburgh]

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

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.

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

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.