Intelligence, Data, COIN and CT

**slapout9** · 10-01-2008

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!!!!!

**Entropy** · 10-01-2008

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!!!!!

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

**slapout9** · 10-02-2008

Entropy, I will have to work on that list

**Ron Humphrey** · 10-10-2008

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!!!!!

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.

**slapout9** · 10-10-2008

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.

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.

**SWJ Blog** · 01-17-2011

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."

**SWJ Blog** · 04-12-2011

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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**SWJ Blog** · 06-05-2011

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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**AdamG** · 07-31-2011

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."

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

**SWJ Blog** · 07-25-2012

Military Intelligence Fusion for Complex Operations

**SWJ Blog** · 11-13-2012

Illuminating the Structure: Intelligence in the Development of CT Strategy

**SWJ Blog** · 07-20-2013

Fitting Intelligence to the Fight: Lessons from Afghanistan

**davidbfpo** · 02-03-2014

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

...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.

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

What is the McCain Institute? From their website:

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.

Link:http://mccaininstitute.org/

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

**davidbfpo** · 04-02-2016

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:

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.

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/

**davidbfpo** · 04-02-2016

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.

**davidbfpo** · 06-13-2017

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

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

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

**davidbfpo** · 01-13-2018

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

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.

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