Intelligence, Data, COIN and CT

[Jedburgh]

National Security Watch: Collecting Data for the Fight

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.

[DDilegge]

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...

[Tom Odom]

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

[GorTex6]

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

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.

Releases April 30, 2006

[Jedburgh]

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

[SWJED]

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

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...

[SWJED]

Got this via e-mail today:

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

[Menning]

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.

[Mike in Hilo]

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.

[Jedburgh]

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

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.....

[Jedburgh]

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

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?

[Ron Humphrey]

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

makes the movement.

[Vic Bout]

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/

[Vic Bout]

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

[Surferbeetle]

Vic,

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

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.

Regards,

Steve

[Jedburgh]

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

....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.....

[William F. Owen]

From Large Formations....

....To Individuals

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

[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

[Entropy]

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

Registering the Human Terrains: A Valuation of Cadastre

Abstract:

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.

The book uses Afghanistan as a case study.

[120mm]

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.