DOCEX, Funding, Feedback, and Motivation
Good piece and very relevant. We are doing better at training this as part of site exploitation. We trained it before back in the old days
The critical point you make is that it is underfunded and it lacks "sex appeal" for generating monies. That has long been a problem; the other side of this is because it is underfunded and undermanned, there is rarely any appreciable feedback. The below pic is a shot of me captured from video as the Rwandan Patriotic Army G3 Colonel Charles Muheri examined captured documents taken in a raid against an Interahamwe militia training base on an island in lake Kivu in November 1995. As I recall this was a supply request sent to the "rear" in Goma; from it we could pretty well detremine how many bad guys were training and operating on the island. It also gave us further confirmation that a command structure to include formal logistics structure was operating. The fact that we found a shed filled with USAID donor beans that had been distributed in the refugee camps also helped.
We sent in quite a bit of stuff for exploitation and never heard a peep. Understand at this time there were 2 issues on the agenda for every session of the National Security Council. One was the Balkans. The other was Rwanda and the camps in Zaire. The "question" of whether the camps were being used as training and operational bases was a White House PIR.
We answered it and heard nothing. You do that to soldiers too much and they stop looking. I think I can safely speak for both Stan and myself on this point; evals on reporting from the rear are critical motivators. Tell me I am doing good, I'll go do more good. Tell me I doing poorly, I'll try and do better. Ignore me and I'll do what I deem necessary and you get what you get. Many times I requested evals just to make sure someone was reading what we sent. DOCEX needs the same thing and that means money and manning.
Best
Tom
Bookmarks