MG Flynn (on intell mainly)

[Ken White]

Though I'd suggest that while Bob is correct on the tactical versus the strategic focus, he and the problem seem to forget that our political system is not conducive to long term strategies. That said, he is correct that our threat-centric intel focus is just really dumbb -- with two 'b's.

Ergo, a policy reform is required...

Entropy is correct in that many 'intel' errors are a result of lazy thinking and counterporductive (i.e. excessive classification, parochialism and turf battles, political expediency among other facets) actions by some analysts and many Bosses.

Seems like a policy reform might help...

Steve's quote from Night Watch has this gem:

"Its weak point is that implementation relies on the same people who failed, twice."

Yet another case of a policy error IMO. Fire a few "pour l'encouragement d'les autres..."

Lastly, WM hits a nail squarely:

"The breakdown occurs in my opinion when one moves from position 'the more one knows, the more one can know' (which is fine) to the position 'the more one can know, the more one must know.' "

There is no policy that explicitly says do that, rather, our policies -- and our Congress -- lead us to do that because the system has developed numerous rules and even laws to protect itself from accountability. Our deeply flawed budgetary process leads to a winner takes all approach and a 'go along - get along' attitude and set of turf allocations all too often that create a series of very discrete stovepipes that foster the idea that more is better when we should instead establish and encourage competition between agencies and units to produce meaningful intel. Reward those who get it right to spur the competitors to better efforts.

There's little doubt in my mind that sharp analysts in many agencies are delivering good product to their Bosses. The problem is they are being constrained by politically (in all senses of that word) oriented supervisors and / or units or agencies who do not want their Honcho to get upset by hearing things he or she would prefer not to hear.

That too would seem to indicate a needed policy change -- fire about half the senior people in order to get the rest to do what they should be doing instead of what they think the Boss might want.

And foster competition. While centralization will always be more efficient it will also always be less effective. In my view, effective intel trumps the 'efficient' production of something that is not really intel but is instead all too often platitudinous garb -- er, information -- of marginal value...

[Steve the Planner]

Ken:

Two comments.

First, about secrecy. As I scurried about Iraq in 2008 to collect huge amounts of data, I always heard criticism from others that secrecy would prevent it (they'll never give you that). In fact, everybody I went to (short of a small bunch of spooks) was bending over backward to get civilian=ized declassified versions of things to me. NGA sent a team over to work the whole civilian shapefile/imagery declass and licensing process.

Scrubbing national-scale metadata is a huge undertaking, but they did it, and Al Faw was 100% behind us.

The spooky characters, as I realized later, were the ones who had little to offer, just their own "secret crap" that they didn't know what to do with, and by lack of reciprocity, didn't get anything else. Not productive players, for whatever team they were working with(?).

Second, some of the big obstacles from folks I was working with fell into two categories: Budget and staffing. There was never a time that people didn;t try like crazy to accommodate, but, where they couldn't, it was budget and staffing.

What I did learn, however, was that between reach-back and field, there were huge duplications of service. A lot of work was being done, but of the wrong kind (duplicates) that could have been systematized, freeing up those same people to don more creative and better work.

Lately, what attracts my attention for Afghanistan is how to susbstantially reduce unnecessary deployed staffs, and the obnerous supply chains that go with it. If we get strangled, it will be by logistics and budgets, so why not optimize unity and synchronization of efforts. Less reports, meetings and staff time on duplicating the SOS and PPT, and more point spear stuff (Civil or mil).

Steve

[Steve the Planner]

Somebody somewhere has built an old fashioned input/output model with constraints on transportation movements (probably Mullah Omar from his new digs in Peshawar), and that will tell the whole story under our latest staffing/deployment models.

I keep reading back to 1920s Iraq. Winnie going for chemicals and air bombardments because it makes the budget and staffing model work on a constrained and extended colony.

Beat that model, and the clocks built into it, and you can win the game.

Steve

[Pete]

Tom Ricks' blog includes the following commentary from a major working on counterterrorism issues at the Pentagon:

We are currently involved in an insurgency in Afghanistan against a force that is routinely better informed than US forces. The enemy provides a painful example of doing more with less. What's that you say? In the age of information dominance are we not the standard bearers for information gathering and sharing at the speed of light? Yes, we are in the academic sense of having forms to fill out, processes to follow, and more systems than we can efficiently use. We must be dominant because we have a line and block diagram for every occasion. Unfortunately, we focus on the form far more than the function of intelligence.

The entire piece is available using the link below:

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts...uck_here_s_why

[Steve the Planner]

Pete:

In civilian life, I do court testimony as an expert.

I'm currently preparing muy reports and testimony for a very complex government case that has been going on for ten years, so I am sitting here going through mountains of records, evidence, underlying court rulings, and trying to develop a deep and richly-supported analysis against the realization that whatever I write or testify to will be grilled to death by two economics professors on the other side armed by the largest law firm in the world.

All kidding aside, the case is about money and government authority---no lives on the line whatsoever, and, ten years from now, no one will ever remember it.

It really is incredible that, where lives are on the line in such a complex circumstance, the so-called warfighter support is so poor.

I have written (or should I say: overwritten factual inaccuracies) in Wiki too often to know the limits of some of the electronic sources.

What's really funny to me in expert testimony matters, too, is that increasingly I see opposing counsel working from electronic research in regulatory cases. The applicable regulation comes up one section at a time despite that a regulation must be read across its entirety. So often, the next section alters the intent and meaning of the last, and they miss that.

E-lawyers versus the old guys that review a printed copy of the entire regulation, which they read cover to cover before developing any positions.

Oh, Brave New World!

[Steve the Planner]

Pete cites Tom Ricks piece from a Major Nathan Murphy (intel sucks: Here's why).

In his report, the Murphy describes the pressures for quick answers, and the frequent Googling for answers.

One of MG Flynn's criticisms was the lack of relevant provincial/district political/administrative information.

I have a specific interest in provincial/district boundary shifts, particularly in and around national border areas, so I decided to compare what I know to what I could google.

I have a composite map of provinces and districts in Afghanistan and Pakistan which I use to follow events in all these places. The one I use shows the district of Delaram in Farah,with an asterisk that Afghanistan does not formally accept the transfer of Delaram from Nimruz to Farah.

Despite the asterisk, the Census Bureau clearly shows the transfer of the 20,000 residents from Nimruz to Farah four years ago, so somebody accepts it.

Anyway, I wiki-ed the two provinces. For Nimruz, the wiki provincial boundary map includes Delaram in Nimruz, but doesn't list Delaram as one of its districts, nor its component population.

For Farah, it does not show Delaram as one of oits districts or the population of Delaram in its component counts.

Both wiki cites claim to use the 2005 Census, but, probably because the changed circumstance didn't conform with their data transfer, Delaram just disappeared.

Farah/Nimruz, like Uruzgan/Daykundi is one of those places of recent changes. 1970's era maps for Nimruz show it extending up to include Lash-e Juwayn (adjacent to Iran and now a part of Farah), so both provincial boundaries have changed by one hundred miles or more.

When there is not much development/administration going on, these "minor" changes and discrepancies don't seem to matter, but become very important if you want to do something like plan and extend government services.

Particularly, if a place like Delaram, adjacent to Washer and Nad Ali districts in Helmand, is only a short hop (so to speak) from places like Now Zad. Great to have a "hole in the wall" or nonexistent district nearby if you are traveling off-the-record.

So wiki is nice, but it isn't always accurate, or timely.

(Yes, I'll update it when I get a chance).

Steve

[Steve the Planner]

SWJ has published an article containing the detailed outline of the new Host Nation Information program.

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9504

Setting aside the jargon, acronyms and flow charts, the issues, now are:

First, does the system create new and actionable insights into the situation?

Second, how do those insights find their way into application, staffing, activity organization, and, in the end, actions?

In Iraq, our purpose in structuring and assembling this type of information was in order to find a framework for synchronized and properly targeted actions in the post-conflict reconstruction environment.

What resulted was were several key understandings. First, that there had not been an effective plan and course of action. Second, that there needed to be one, and that it must be heavily driven by Iraqis, and based on sound hierarchical actions, and sustainable strategies.

The results were a simplification of focus on clearly identified first-things-first: security, water, energy and power (the preconditions for any future successful efforts). From there, US DoD resources to see, assess, travel, and plan/engineer were used to systematically assess and prioritize project needs (roads, bridges, fuel movement, water & wells, etc...); CERP and other resources were targeted consistent with the priorities (and Iraqi sourced projects were not CERPed in order to focus US funding away from duplication of Iraqi activities. Then, after identifying the Iraqi implementing agencies (mostly national ministries), the MND-N CG implemented a process of "helicopter diplomacy" to substantially reconnect the ministries to the provinces, and link the ministries with the problems.

One critical factor behind the Iraqi strategy was the recognition that relevant Iraqi agencies and leaders had twice rebuilt their country from two devastating wars, and one of which was done under hugely restrictive sanctions. This may not be the case in Afghanistan.

In my view, the effort in Northern Iraq in 08 was to identify the way through to improved post-reconstruction, which, in that circumstance, identified Iraqi-focused solutions to connect Iraqi provinces and ministries, and deliver to them (not us) the knowledge, responsibility and power to move forward on their own. This may not be practical in Afghanistan.

The questions in Iraq were answered there, and thpose answers dictated specific solutions and actions.

If the new information systems answers the same basic questions, what will the answers be, and how we they drive solutions in Afghanistan?

Clearly, it is unlikely that the answers should be the same. Let's see what they learn...