Quote Originally Posted by Jason Port View Post
The issue in my tactical brain is that we have again brought in "help" from on high, when in fact, we have enough brain power on the ground to conduct the "analysis" that the paper talks about.
I think the problem is and has been that far too many tasks demand the attention of the troops, and without an infrastructure and reporting system, not to mention people to maintain the records, that vital information has repeatedly been collected, reported, and lost.

In multiple meetings with government officials, village elders, etc., I was chastized as I ran down my list of questions -- "Every time a new one of you shows up, you ask us these same questions. Why don't you record this information somewhere, or why don't the people before you tell you about this?" It was incredibly embarassing to get schooled by rural Afghans, who have little understanding of the complexities of our ridiculous bureaucracy, and still understood that we were lacking this minor capacity.

Asking these analysts to fly around Afghanistan and interview these folks will only place a dent in the collection problem while increasing the helicopter mission requirements, likely taking them away from supporting tactical forces.
I think the helicopter thing was a selling point for higher-ups, not neccessarily a realistic scenario. What I took away that instead of being static as part of the battalion or brigade headquarters, that these analysts could spend time in their assigned area of expertise. I hope that's the case.

Sending an analyst to cover Helmand province one week and another the next may result in very skewed reporting. Like sending the Dallas reporter to cover the Philadelphia Eagles training camp and expecting unbiased reports.
My understanding was that analysts would be tasked geographically, so someone working on Helmand would only work on Helmand.

In addition, this will not solve the larger investigative questions like project data and other information that requires longer term collection efforts. I think the paper talks about how many telephone poles are in a given area - shows infratstructure improvement - but there is no way a visiting analyst will capture that. In turn, we would need to get boots out on the ground to conduct these surveys.
I agree that using these analysts as collectors is not a good solution and that the troops need to be collecting the information. Again, I'm hoping that the real difference here will be having someone assigned and responsible to track and maintain these types of records for an extended period, rather than just getting assignments to collect information on a whim of the PRT S-2 or battalion S-3, which they eventually forget and all the collected information disappears into the ether.