New to S2, need FM 34-20 and collection management info

[Entropy]

Col. Jones,

You've hit upon a big issue, one that I don't have a ton of direct experience with as a zoomie. Several infantry types (mostly Army) I've spoken with, however, have a lot of complaints about intel, which boil down to essentially this (which I'm paraphrasing):

"We know much more about our AO than intel does. They work at higher levels and spend their time making powerpoints based on information from even higher up the chain and theater and national assets, very little of which benefits us. They also don't understand our needs."

That sense is a couple of years old now, so maybe things have changed, but it seems to me the best intel assets are the guys on the ground doing the hard work of COIN and the intel folks don't appreciate that. I don't know, but maybe intel should be pushed down to lower levels. I know that doing that would probably help provide small units better assistance from CFACC and other theater ISR assets as well.

[Ken White]

"We know much more about our AO than intel does. They work at higher levels and spend their time making powerpoints based on information from even higher up the chain and theater and national assets, very little of which benefits us. They also don't understand our needs."

That sense is a couple of years old now, so maybe things have changed

Probably not. Changed, that is. It is a complaint that's at least as old as I happen to be. It certainly was a complaint in the line infantry units in both Korea and Viet Nam. An allied complaint was -- and this is from what I'm told still true -- that the Intel Community puts far more reliance on its assets, no matter how far removed from reality (or real time), than it does on reports from the troop units.

I won't even go into trying to move an Arc Light in Viet Nam based on a Recon Patrols observations over the previous 24 hours in the face of the ASA intercepts from two weeks earlier...

It was also true that if the Bn/Sqn S2 happened to be an Officer from the branch of the unit, his interest in usable Intel was generally far more than that of the MI branched S2s who tended to look up the stovepipe to a far too great extent. There were a few exceptions both ways but that was generally true.

[Entropy]

that the Intel Community puts far more reliance on its assets, no matter how far removed from reality (or real time), than it does on reports from the troop units.

I think that is the greatest failure of us intel folks in these wars. We don't seem to realize that the best collection asset we have are those guys on the ground, who've patrolled that valley day in and day out, know enemy TTP from hard experience, who the local powerbrokers are, etc. Don't tell those sensitive anthropologists who are opposed to their discipline's association with war, but the Human Terrain Teams are performing an intelligence function. The intelligence community could be and should be doing that, but we aren't, so it's outsourced. Very little of that kind of information can be discovered with our traditional intelligence assets and our traditional intelligence mindsets.

So the intelligence community needs to look at HTT's and the boots-on-the-ground for what they are - probably the best collection assets we have. If intel personnel were pushed down to the lowest echelons so they could directly interface with those knowledgeable soldiers, they would, IMO, be much better positioned to do two things:

1. Tap into, and report on, all that knowledge soldiers have of their AO into intelligence channels.

2. Leverage that knowledge by facilitating better and more coordinated collection from traditional intelligence assets. The IC has a lot of analytical and specialist capability that could provide a lot better value-added information than is currently the case.

We even see some of this operations-becomes-intelligence dynamic among the air forces in what's called Non-traditional ISR (NTISR). Increasingly, non-intelligence platforms are being used for intelligence purposes - specifically aircraft with EO/IR sensors. Much of the time they are performing what is really an intelligence/overwatch role instead of a straight combat role. They are not ISR assets, however, and are not doctrinally or functionally tied to intelligence, so the information they provide, while useful at the real-time tactical level, may never be further exploited by intelligence professionals. This is another area that needs more work.

New UAS's like Reaper blur the line even more. Is Reaper an ISR asset? Is it an operational combat asset? The Air Force, I think, is still figuring that one out. In reality it's both, but because the C2 that controls and coordinate ISR and combat aircraft assets are different (in the AF and Navy at least), the question of who controls the asset becomes an important one.

Maybe the separation and stovepiping of intelligence and operations is the root of the problem. The technological stovepiping is in the process of getting fixed in some cases, but the tough nut is the organizational aspect.

[Schmedlap]

I think this is a two-way street that has been neglected for a long time and it now just a potholed eyesore that nobody even thinks about traveling down.

Certainly, the most valuable intel assets are the Soldiers on the ground. But their intel is useless if they don't..
1) pass it up to the 2 shop
2) pass along stuff that is relevant
3) pass along "just the facts" first, with their "analysis" second (if at all)

Surprisingly, a relatively easy fix to this solution is to ensure that a rep from the 2 shop debriefs each patrol or - what works well for the SF folks - have a resident 18F honcho the intel effort at the lowest level. For the non-SF combat arms who aren't going to be assigned that kind of expertise below the Bn level, perhaps rotate 2 shop personnel down to the company level. It's manpower lost in the 2 shop but, in my opinion, would pay off in the long run. What good is having a shop full of intel minions if you're not getting anything of value from the companies for them to analyze?

Likewise, many 2 shops (not all) tend to do a poor job of generating intelligence requirements for the line units to collect and a poor job of driving operations once they've amassed enough intel to do so. But they can't just dream up good ideas for the shooters to implement. If there is insufficient two-way communication between collection and analysis, then the 2 shop is going to be dreaming up bright ideas that the line units will look at and say, "this is out of the left field bleachers. Who's the guy at Bn who got visited by the bad idea fairy? Screw this." - and then close down PowerPoint and hit the delete button.

I've seen 2 shops fail to drive operations. More often than not, it is due to...
1) a lack of input from the lower echelon
2) in thankfully rare occasions, a lack of solid guidance from the commander
3) excessive demands from higher echelons to push products up, rather than down, leaving little time to be bothered with the pesky mission that the unit deployed to accomplish

[ODB]

We even see some of this operations-becomes-intelligence dynamic among the air forces in what's called Non-traditional ISR (NTISR). Increasingly, non-intelligence platforms are being used for intelligence purposes - specifically aircraft with EO/IR sensors. Much of the time they are performing what is really an intelligence/overwatch role instead of a straight combat role. They are not ISR assets, however, and are not doctrinally or functionally tied to intelligence, so the information they provide, while useful at the real-time tactical level, may never be further exploited by intelligence professionals. This is another area that needs more work.

New UAS's like Reaper blur the line even more. Is Reaper an ISR asset? Is it an operational combat asset? The Air Force, I think, is still figuring that one out. In reality it's both, but because the C2 that controls and coordinate ISR and combat aircraft assets are different (in the AF and Navy at least), the question of who controls the asset becomes an important one.

IMO these are one of the most misutilized assets today. I want to utilize them to watch things on the ground. Unfortunately these assets have turned into the ultimate reality TV show for those far removed from the ground truth. I do not want you Monday morning quarterbacking my operations, I want to be able to use these assets to help drive my operations. I do not want my operations observed for all to see. Nothing worse than going out to conduct a hit and finding out you are being observed. Make a radio call and higher confirms they put the asset on you! One word horse####!!! Getting these assets to do what it is they do best is impossible.

[Ken White]

...I do not want you Monday morning quarterbacking my operations, I want to be able to use these assets to help drive my operations. I do not want my operations observed for all to see...Getting these assets to do what it is they do best is impossible.

and the strong belief that "all my subordinates use poor judgment" (i.e. they don't do the things the way I would do them...) cause that eye in the sky to be misused in the ways you state.

Those two syndromes, by the way are entirely different things -- but they do feed off each other in too many people who are old enough, experienced enough and who should be smart enough to not do those things.

I'm not sure it's impossible to change that but it will be difficult as long as the fail safe mentality isn't eliminated...

[Schmedlap]

There are two sides to that coin.

I have seen two very different JSOTF commanders use UAV assets to observe the operations of a team on the ground. One was an over-caffeinated, nicotine-addicted, micromanaging machine. The other was so laid back that he was actually effective. The former actually used the UAV to inject himself into the operations, actually going so far as to make contact with the team and inform them, "you've got personnel on the rooftops to your east." The latter preferred for the JOC floor to be able to observe operations to have a better idea of how to leverage assets in support of the team. I think the former technique was insane, but that the latter made a lot of sense.

I'm not sure how transparent the JSOTF staff's efforts are to the team, but there was a lot going on in the JOC while a team was doing their work on the ground, and it involved no communication with the team - just observation of their activity and talking to assets in the air. Just off the top of my head, I can recall one mission where an aircraft had no comms with the team, but I was able to watch what they were doing on the screen and, having read the details of the op beforehand, I was able to tell the crew what to do and for how long. Fifteen minutes later, the JTAC came on our net, informing us that he had no contact with the aircraft. I let him know what instructions I had passed to them. His reply was, "that sounds good. Keep that up until (time) or until we call (opsked)." There's a right way and a wrong way.

Speaking from an earlier deployment and from the other end of the camera, I was actually happy to learn, after the fact, that a company-level operation that we did was observed by the Brigade Commander. On that deployment, my impression was that our BDE commander was out of touch and clueless regarding operations occurring more than a kilometer from his palace. Watching via UAV seemed like a good way for him to actually get a sense of what we were doing on a daily basis. It was not an adequate substitute for him coming out to see us with his own eyes, but I don't think that he considered doing that (and I really didn't feel like hosting him), so this seemed like a good happy medium.

[Ken White]

use of assets and lack of micromanagement than there are bad ones. I know that elimination of all bad things will never happen -- but I can hope for more and more good and less and less bad...

I'm too old to also work for it -- you guys will have to do that.