MG Flynn (on intell mainly)

[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