Cultural Intelligence & Intelligence and Culture (catch all)

[William F. Owen]

Is there friction between (America's) military culture and effective intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination? I understand that the nature of war itself does not necessarily lend itself to optimal intelligence operations in all cases, so I am curious if we are in many ways making our job more difficult through bias, perceptions, and expectations of the role, nature, usefulness, and methods of intelligence work.

There is nothing wrong with American culture, and it will have no impact on the nations conduct of intelligence activities.
Being lazy, stupid and/or poorly trained will have a greater impact. Essentially if there is a problem with US Intelligence, then is about the people working in it. Nothing to do with culture. Did US "culture" put men on the moon?
"Intelligence" is about selecting the right people for the right job. If that isn't held to be central to doctrine and practice, you will always have a problem.

[Red Rat]

we find that a large part of the (UK) intelligence community regard intelligence as an end in itself, rather than as a means to an end...

They also seem to risk averse, unwilling to give analysis based likely courses of action and preferring to give straight forward reports on what has or is happening.

We find our best Int staff tend to come from a G3 background and have more of a feel for what the end user requirement is.

It sounds, looking at the previous posts, that your (US military) experiences are not all that different from ours. In terms of military ethos the big differences I have noticed between the US military and the UK military is that the US military appears more self-honest and more goal (success) orientated. I would have thought that both of these when linked would have made your G2 set-up more capable and responsive.

[William F. Owen]

we find that a large part of the (UK) intelligence community regard intelligence as an end in itself, rather than as a means to an end...

They also seem to risk averse, unwilling to give analysis based likely courses of action and preferring to give straight forward reports on what has or is happening.

Well that's a major step backwards since 1991, when I was getting trade qualified in this area. There was a huge amount of emphasis on "So what" and "What does that mean?"
...but that was back in the days before "the art of ISTAR" turned into the current load of garbage it patently is.

[SethB]

So if part of the problem is getting the right people, then why doesn't the US Army make MI a non-accessions that 1LT (P)s can compete for in their third year in service?

That way they all come from a basic branch (Infantry, Armor, Artillery, Transport, Chemical, etc) with some training and experience, and they aren't simply branched based on grades (ROTC) and run times (OCS).

[Red Rat]

Well that's a major step backwards since 1991, when I was getting trade qualified in this area. There was a huge amount of emphasis on "So what" and "What does that mean?"

The 'so what' and 'What does that mean' I am reliably informed still happens; and certainly the Intelligence Community often appears very wise after the fact

But my perspective working at unit and bde level was that we saw very little of this output and what I wanted most (an analysis on assessed intention and likely courses of action) was lacking. The intelligence briefing was a bit like the weather report on the BBC, mostly 'this morning we had sunny weather in London'; Doh! I lived through that part - what's going to happen tomorrow?

[William F. Owen]

But my perspective working at unit and bde level was that we saw very little of this output and what I wanted most (an analysis on assessed intention and likely courses of action) was lacking. The intelligence briefing was a bit like the weather report on the BBC, mostly 'this morning we had sunny weather in London'; Doh! I lived through that part - what's going to happen tomorrow?

It's all about people!

[Infanteer]

But my perspective working at unit and bde level was that we saw very little of this output and what I wanted most (an analysis on assessed intention and likely courses of action) was lacking. The intelligence briefing was a bit like the weather report on the BBC, mostly 'this morning we had sunny weather in London'; Doh! I lived through that part - what's going to happen tomorrow?

Too true. In Afghanistan, I worked with a really good guy (ex Inf NCO) who worked the analysis really well and new the ins-and-outs of the district (and would fight to get on patrols with us) but I'm getting the impression he's in the minority and many in the "Int" trade are glorified slide readers.

[Red Rat]

I once put in a Request For Information (RFI) in Basra, 2 weeks later it popped back out of the system and came to me.........to answer!