MG Flynn (on intell mainly)

[Surferbeetle]

Posted on the Tom Ricks blog on FP The Flynn report (IV): Cordesman's take and written by Anthony H. Cordesman

It may not be tactful to point out just how much the popular war has moved towards calls for an exit strategy, and how serious the level of Congressional and media doubt has become. The fact is, however, that the country team must now demonstrate competence, unity, and progress or lose the war.

This raises a key issue not addressed in Fixing Intel. How can the release of unclassified assessments and metrics reverse this situation and help win. Until the recent release of new unclassified metrics by USCENTCOM, no element of the US military or Executive Branch began to address this issue. The fact is, however, that intelligence should be a key element of a process of strategic communications that helps to correct the mistakes made in presenting and supporting the President's speech, that reinforces the broad themes raised in the testimony to Congress that followed, that establishes broad credibility, and shapes as much of the reporting on the war and perceptions of its progress as possible. This is as critical a part of Fixing Intel as any addressed in the paper.

[Steve the Planner]

Beetle:

We've been beating these subjects to death for months now, haven't we?

Good to see them finally at front and center.

Steve

[Schmedlap]

D'oh. I wrote a rambling blog entry on this yesterday, not noticing that the discussion had already begun.

I am in near 100% agreement with what Steve (the planner) and Entropy wrote - particularly on the first page of this thread.

The most encouraging thing that I see in this (proposal/directive/idea?) is the establishment of some system that will reduce duplication of effort and reign in the ridiculous over-classification of information. An added benefit that I hope will occur is that there will finally be some consolidation of information that is continually added to. This was a pet peeve of mine on my 2nd and 3rd deployments. After a year in one location, the 2 shop and anyone who does any patrolling has a ton of useful knowledge about the AO. Where does that knowledge go upon RIP/TOA? It goes home with the outgoing unit and is immediately rinsed out of their brains with alcohol.

This was not just a problem at the beginning of a deployment, either. Seven months into a deployment, I would hit up my S-2 for information and he would direct me to a stack of raw intelligence reports that were six months old. I would always ask, "does this intelligence ever get compiled into a continually updated assessment of the area?" I would then be directed to a table of red, yellow, and green dots that signify some mysterious, arbitrary assessments of various "lines of operations." What does a yellow dot tell me? Oh, wait, here it is: . Apparently the yellow dots mean that everyone is happy.

What left me shaking my head as I read the document was that many problems were identified, but the solutions posed do nothing to address those problems. I think the solutions of the regional information efforts will help with over-classification and duplication of effort. Great. But what about the other problems cited? Units are unable to answer the most basic of intelligence requirements, personnel at BDE are being misused, and BN is often undermanned. I see no solution to those problems in this paper. Just to be clear - I don't think those problems are the purview of the CJ2 or any other staff officer. They are leadership issues that commanders need to address. If your unit is not gathering basic IR's (such as the examples given on page 8), then that is purely a leadership issue. Reinventing intelligence is not going to reverse a situation where tasks are assigned and not accomplished or no thought is put into the IRs by the command and staff. Why bother raising those issues? It seems like this solution is being presented as a cure-all. I suspect that was done because the scope of the changes is enormous, but the ills that will be cured are few and narrow.

[Steve the Planner]

Schmedlap:

I figured you were keeping your powder dry...

Once I got known and accepted around MND-North (as an OK DoS guy), the folks at DivEng and CA would pass on their file dumps of good ideas they collected but couldn't get around to.

That was what convinced me that we had some truly bright and capable folks out in the field but no system to collect and use it all.

In Jan 08, a departing LTC gave me a file containing photos and field assessments of virtually every grain storage silo in the North. He had been collecting it for a while as a side project since, back home, he understood that area.

After a while, folks like that realized that MND-North's terrain folks would compile it if they passed it on, so they started to. Then, it became a measurable of contributing to MG Hertling's clearly stated effort of civilian engagement/Reconstruction, so it was not only good, but good for ya.

But that was in 2008. We all know that hundreds of bored and cuious US folks gathered this kind of stuff, but it didn't find a home, or build on an existing framework. We could have known twice as much in half the time.

In Summer 08, I went to a meeting on CIDNE about the Legacy data. They said: Sure, we have it." When we started, we sent out requests for all prior units to send it. So, we did that.

When asked the important question: How much did you get? the answer was, Well, none yet.

Go figure.

Steve

[Surferbeetle]

Beetle:

We've been beating these subjects to death for months now, haven't we?

Good to see them finally at front and center.

It's not just limited to our tree, the forest is in an uproar as well...

From the Harvard Business Review blog by Umair Haque: The Builders' Manifesto (H/T John Robb)

So the question is this: are you merely managing an organization, just leading an organization — or are you building an institution? 99.9% of the world's leaders are, well, just leaders. But today, leadership alone can't get you from the 20th century to the 21st.

Of course, everyone has their own definition of leadership — and that's why it's a tricky subject to discuss. The "leadership" I'm challenging is of the orthodox, B-school 101 one, that has to do with motivation, influence, and power.

[Steve the Planner]

Like the Structure of Scientific Revolutions---a time to change, and a time tpo implement.

When it's time to change, you adapt or you don't.

Headline from Jalalabad:

"Vaccination Diplomacy': Taliban Helps UN, Karzai"

http://www.newser.com/story/77839/va...un-karzai.html

Somebody is out there learning and adapting every day.

Steve

[Entropy]

Interesting context to MG Flynn's article (PPT file). First, this is one of the most complete unclassified assessments I've seen. Secondly, it's a bit ironic that it's done on powerpoint. Courtesy of Danger Room.

[Bob's World]

Just to clarify an easily misunderstood comment I made about COIN and CT. What I meant was that the intel community is too quick to label insurgents who engage in acts of terror as "terrorists"; and that we then apply CT tactics against these insurgents (which is really counterinsurgent or CI I guess) operations.

I have never seen much value in CT as a mission set as it does not create any new TTPS to train, organize, or operate. It is merely DA and SR applied against a particular type of actor. It think it confuses more than it clarifies. I have suggested to that having a "State-CT" section as the lead for DOS on GWOT is VERY wrong-headed for our primary governance engagement department. It distracts them from what they really need to be doing to put terrorism back in the box: Focus on fixing policy, not fixing terrorists. Similarly having "NCTC" as the lead agency for GWOT also creates the same distracting effect of overly focusing efforts to reduce a symptom (the terrorist) as opposed to devising holisic programs aimed at root causes.

There are a lot of insurgencies going on out there, at various stages, and each unique to is own country. Many of these are in countries the US considers as allies; and many of those insurgents believe they must attack the US to prevail at home. AQ plays on that belief. We must target that belief. CT focuses us on targetting the actor, the symptom. We must shift to targeting those facts and perceptions that lead to the the belief itself. Change the nature of our relationships, adjust our Ways and Means to persue our Ends.

So, while MG Flynn's paper is a great start, it also a very tactical perspective. How to be more tactically effective in Afghanistan. Great start. Now let's back up and expand the aperture to the Corps of intel guys at the national level. They too are focused in large part on the wrong things because we have focused everybody on the wrong thing. Focused them all on defeating "terrorists" and "terrorism" (both symptoms) instead of developing the information we need to truly understand and address the root causes.

I have my theories, but they are just theories. Perhaps once the intel is developed to explore such theories they can become more than that.

[Steve the Planner]

Bob:

Military perspective aside, when I first saw that ppt, I was looking at the civilian dimensions.

International economic development had not matched local expectations. What does that mean? How do you "Cure" that with quick hits and low-hanging fruit?

Maybe wrong, but I read the "Shadows" as an inevitable result of the above, plus failure to extend the basic writ and services of local government (basic civil/criminal justice, humanitarian services, and, above all, security). People find a way to representation, and, for better or worse, the troublesome election, the continued lack of government effectiveness, and the lack of focus on basic constitutional reforms (a Loya Jirga to move to locally elected governors, for example)plus the fact that international forces are being portrayed as the cause or attractor of population insecurity. While it is easy for us to dodge these fundamental issues, it is inevitable that the dodge has consequences.

Is COIN so all encompassing as to address issues raised elsewhere in SW: What if we are representing a bad government? What if opposition is fairly grounded? What if the opposition, despite our views, is perceived as "better than ours?

Tony Cordesman's report about winning the battles and losing the wars is, in my opinion, not really a military critique, but a "whole-of-government" critique.

He punches hard on the lack of metrics, lack of focus, lack of results on the civilian side. Great, we built a new road somewhere: How did that project related to the short, medium, long range issues at the core of instability in this town or district?

What are the causes of instability in this town, district, province? Are there credible and effective projects highly-targeted at those, or are we just building a road because we can, and doing nothing significant to address the high-priority causes for instability?

Great. 1,000 civilians descended on Afghanistan. How did that help? What are they doing? What were the problems of importance? What are they doing about those?

No offense, but I hear a lot of crap about this human terrain analysis stuff, and the reconstruction stuff, but I don't see the results. We don't do this well, and aren't going to change absent a well-placed boot (or a shocking failure).

I get it that Afghanistan is more complicated than Iraq, but our civilian/ht, reconstruction in Iraq was abysmal. If we just do that quality and caliber of work in Afghanistan, it is no wonder the "yellow" is bleeding across the map.

Behind it all, I remain deeply concerned that the US is not following the consequences of urbanization (by UN definition), including the growing urban refugee pops in "informal settlements."

Kabul alone has exploded to 4.5 million people, and we are busy chasing bad guys on the frontier, while token protests are beginning to emerge in the cities. What are we credibly doing to assure that those token protests, and the causes of their protests (which go beyond the surface complaint) are being addressed/controlled/minimized/resolved/eliminated?

These refugee "cities", throughout history, are the place where there truly "Be Dragons," and provide an abundant opportunity for the next regional Sadrs to emerge, safe operational havens for current opponents, and the breeding ground (as we see in Pakistan) for Madrahsas.

If anything, I believe the Flynn report goes far beyond the military. I assume, in part, that is why it is public.

Just my ten cents.

Steve