Chaotic Dynamics: A Novel Approach to Intelligence Analysis in Asymmetric Warfare

[JeffC]

The CIA ended its prohibition on hiring gay employees in 1991. Indeed, there is even an Agency Network of Gay and Lesbian Employees.

Indeed. My mistake. It's the Defense Language Institute that gave the boot to Arabic linguists for their sexual orientation (and still will).

CIA still has internal roadblocks (like a 4-year degree among other issues) that are stopping them from filling a critical need for qualified translators. As of June, 2005, they are supposed to be reviewing those procedures.

[Jedburgh]

Indeed. My mistake. It's the Defense Language Institute that gave the boot to Arabic linguists for their sexual orientation (and still will).

Just to be clear, its not DLI that kicks out service members for their sexual orientation, it is the individual service commands at DLI. Speaking to the Army side of that, there are only two ways in which a soldier can be booted out for their orientation: be caught in a homosexual act or put in writing that he (or she) is a homosexual and run it up through a bureaucratic process confirming their sexual orientation several times prior to the actual chapter taking place. A soldier has to work at it to get kicked out for being gay.

During my time at DLI, the soldiers I observed being given the boot were consciously trying to get out of the Army. They fell into two categories. The first were the slackers and cowards, who decided that Army life was not for them (or the thought of being deployed into a combat zone after graduation scared the hell out of'em), and that declaring homosexuality was an easy out. Still a lot of red tape, but faster than the old "food-for-freedom" route (which was eventually closed).

The others were the parasites - they'd wait until they were about to graduate from the course, and then declare their homosexuality and get themselves kicked out after having completed nearly two years of world-class language training at taxpayer expense.

However, taken as a whole, the numbers kicked out for this reason were insignificant compared to either disciplinary chapters or academic attrition.

[Rex Brynen]

A soldier has to work at it to get kicked out for being gay.

Although I have to say that even considering sexual orientation as grounds for exclusion from the military seems to me the height of foolishness (not to mention, just plain morally wrong).

(Now back to our regularly scheduled thread.)

[Shivan]

Thank all for the comments.

. . .We aren't to far from being able to create the above scenario.

This stuff is amazing. Thank you for posting the links, esp. to Silverman's work at U/Penn. I had no idea how close simulation was to the real deal. I'm still reading through material to educate myself.

To infil Afghan, Albanian, Indonesian, Nigerian or Russian organized crime networks - let alone getting into the core of al-Qa'ida, Chechen or JI terror structures - ain't as simple as just getting someone to approve mixing in with the bad guys - or of the operator being up to speed on language and cultural nuances. These groups operate on tight-knit trust networks, and are generally composed of individuals linked by kinship and friendship ties that are very difficult to compose and live cover to enough of a degree to get inside. It is also not exactly easy to spot and recruit someone inside one of those targets from the outside. So its a helluva difficult and dangerous job that should never be underestimated or taken for granted - but don't assume that nothing is going on in that regard.

Agree wholeheartedly, which is what I was thinking of vis-a-vis simulation and immersion for intel collectors. Useful, but hard to break into the kinship networks. The old Italian mob started getting infiltrated as the old generations moved on, and the American born crowd allowed people in who did not have ties to the old country; this is happening a little with the Russian mob in the U.S. Long story short - hard to do with AQ etc, but not impossible, as Jedburgh notes.

For intel analysts, simulation & immersion will improve their skills exponentially.

Salaam y'all

[nichols]

Brian,

In your attempt to be the Renaissance man of the board, you are exposing your ignorance on certain subjects.

I even provided links to the multiple thrusts to this project.

I was a bit of a leader in VR once, have a videotape "Fundamentals of Virtual Reality" sold to over 4000 universities around the world through UVC (now defunct.) .

The operative words are 'once' and 'defunct.' This helps explain why you don't work at DARPA, ONR, or answer our BAAs and FedBiz Ops announcements.

I wrote a Workbook for a simulation that is still used for the SSgt Non-resident Course PME and for the FA-57 course out at Leavenworth. That's past history, granted it got me this job 5 years ago but the knowledge, while a cutting edge application for a simple simulation was big news back then....it's dated.

Worked on image processing real time acquisitions since. I am aware of the state of AI etcetera. We are a ways from that scenario still.

Try reading the links, we are within 12-18 months to having this capability. The pieces are already developed, we have tested them using HLA, now we are doing direct plugins using open APIs.

All of this has been made possible through multiple cognitive task analysis, training effectiveness evaluations and pushing the limits on industry.....it ain't rocket science.

I've been in the acquisition side since Novemeber 2002 ; I'm still getting paychecks, I must be doing something right.

What we aren't so far from is a situation where actors can play virtual parts who are in a distant location. That's doable now.

Brian, this has been going onin the civilian side for at least 10 years. On the military side for over 6 years. Fort Lewis uses units in country to send back and train TTPs with CONUS units. In July we had Marines at 29 Palms in a convoy trainer calling in AC-130s in the simulation at Hurlbert using the J-10.

That said, while military regulations may restrict fraternization

I missed that memo, I was 'fraternizing' while in country and married her 3 years later in CA......guess I'm a bad boy, shame on me.

[Brian Hanley]

Brian,
In your attempt to be the Renaissance man of the board, you are exposing your ignorance on certain subjects.
I even provided links to the multiple thrusts to this project.

Looked at them. Careful about assumptions regarding responses. I developed the virtual work immersion system design which is still, today, ahead of its time. (BTW - UVC was a distribution outfit, not an engineering firm - I mentioned that for completeness if anyone tried to look it up.) I solved a basic problem of synchronization unique to battlefield sims (bullets move fast) that is doubtless still in use. (Or it should be. Things sometimes get lost.) I'm the kind of guy that is sometimes sitting there while some board chairman or stuffed suit blathers bull#### to people who don't know any better. Always remember that a demo is just that, a demo.

... we are within 12-18 months to having this capability. The pieces are already developed, we have tested them using HLA, now we are doing direct plugins using open APIs.

What is "this capability"? There's a long ways between "pieces developed", APIs and a VTK and putting high level stuff together.

I've been in the acquisition side since Novemeber 2002 ; I'm still getting paychecks, I must be doing something right.

I'll note that I have been on the development side for considerably longer than that, and that the military has been supporting this stuff for 19 years. (With similar predictions from folks in your position along much of the way.)

Let's go through, point by point, your statement that generated my response.

The MEU is sitting off the coast of Africa, Burkina Faso has just launched the balloon and a NEO Op is ordered. On the big boat the intell bubbas pull down NGA data sets for Ouagadougou and import then into the virtual world.

Completely doable. Those can be put together and canned ahead of time.

Mean while back at the embassy the Gunney or Embassy Stan type bubba sends the detailed buildings that they have created of thier hooch via secure line to the big boat. The intell bubbas put this into the virtual world.

Doable. But I think it's unlikely those building plans would come from the embassy unless they had them on file. It would make far more sense to have them on file stateside. For more likely you'd have satellite photographs and stateside (or shipside) teams putting together any custom VR world than to offload it to somebody at an embassy. Even definition files can be tricky.

Now they pull up the AI library and insert Sahel French language and culture plugin. The final effort is edit the artificial intelligence to match current intel.

You could make some very dumb bots and place them in the world. You might even be able to do some degree of speech recognition. You could have a library of canned "characters" but they would not be capable of intelligent interaction. Look, I am quite aware of the state of "AI", it's various branches, production systems, (Minsky-esque) neural nets, KNN, Fuzzy systems, etcetera. Whether "AI" even exists is highly debatable. What we have now can, if stretched, imitate a cockroach's intelligence. We aren't up to mouse yet. Everything else is just a production system or an illusion of grammar, a la ELISA.

Which is not to say such things can't be useful as far as they go. But be careful about overselling them and particularly careful about throwing "AI" around. Cheers.

[Stan]

Brian,

Looked at them. Careful about assumptions regarding responses. I developed the virtual work immersion system design which is still, today, ahead of its time. (BTW - UVC was a distribution outfit, not an engineering firm - I mentioned that for completeness if anyone tried to look it up.) I solved a basic problem of synchronization unique to battlefield sims (bullets move fast) that is doubtless still in use. (Or it should be. Things sometimes get lost.) I'm the kind of guy that is sometimes sitting there while some board chairman or stuffed suit blathers bull#### to people who don't know any better. Always remember that a demo is just that, a demo.

As a common courtesy to the entire SWJ, please include (you can still edit your post) links that justify and support your opinions and/or statements above (this also applies to future posts, and is also considered common courtesy herein).

Doable. But I think it's unlikely those building plans would come from the embassy unless they had them on file. It would make far more sense to have them on file stateside. For more likely you'd have satellite photographs and stateside (or shipside) teams putting together any custom VR world than to offload it to somebody at an embassy. Even definition files can be tricky.

We're back to (mis) understanding responsibilities and inner functions of American Embassies. Sadly, you never served in one. Who, in your opinion, is the 'in-country' source of knowledge ? Yes, we do indeed 'file' information in CONUS, but updates can and do often occur in minutes during upheavals and civil wars. Imagine this (I've done it three times): Country X implodes and the US Embassy is evacuated with the exception of essential staff and most of the US Military members. The USG directs a Marine landing force to X for whatever reason. Information as you clearly indicated is only available stateside and is now hours or days old (useless).

So, you then do what...Commander ? Enough said. Please discontinue second guessing our functions at home and abroad.

[slapout9]

Question for Brian. Are you the same Brian Hanley that was an associate professor at the Air Force Academy?

[nichols]

Looked at them. Careful about assumptions

Brian,

Good advise one should be careful about assumptions. Stan had a pretty good piece of advise also about posting links, at the same time I understand why you can't provide links to your subjective assessment of the current state of simulation.

I note how you went from "Still a ways from that" regarding the scenario to now most of the scenario is 'doable' what made you change your mind?

Your knowledge of simulation may be dated due to your exploits in Tbilisi, I think you were working for a pharmaceutical company. Were you maintaining your simulation knowledge then or was Tbilisi a simulation

Please go ahead and read the links that I provided for you, the speech recognizer in the Tactical Language sim is much further advanced then you think it is. As to giving values to the avatars, check out Barry Silerman's AI piece. These are all past the 'demo' stage. As to the Virtual Took Kit, check out Bohemia's link, specifically the VTK API section.

I know you posted that you read the links, if you did then you may not comprehend what it means. The files that you feel should be stored in CONUS, wouldn't be. The people at the posts would be creating and adjusting the model as the GSO changes wall configurations.

The drive of the VTK is for end user creation, not going back to the contractor to create virtual dirt.

Times are a changing Brian, if you want to keep up, you have to read.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...-engine-02580/

[JeffC]

For example, a Red Team of intelligence analysts are deployed to a facility where they are immersed in an environment as realistically constructed as possible to simulate the daily experience of a member of Al-Qae’da in Iraq, or the Taliban in Afghanistan. This may include religious education in the Koran, daily prayers to Allah, all written and spoken communication done only in Arabic, and other like-minded activities. Any scenario that displaces the previous mindset of the analyst and replaces it with one more closely aligned with the terrorist would accomplish the goal.

Once the internal structures of the brain have been dissolved and rebuilt, these analysts will be able to discern and predict enemy movements and plans from a much deeper and richer foundation of knowledge than ever before. While the axiom that “we don’t know what we don’t know” will still apply, these analysts will be much better prepared to spot the guerilla in the center of the basketball court.

It's nice to see that Bruce Hoffman agrees with me regarding the need to get into the enemy's mindset. Here's a quote from his article "Countering Terrorist Use of the Web as a Weapon" in the 12/2007 issue of CTC Sentinel (Thanks, Ted)

"To do so, we first need to better understand the mindset and minutia of the al-Qa`ida movement, the animosity and arguments that underpin it and indeed the regions of the world from which its struggle emanated and upon which its hungry gaze still rests. Without knowing our enemy we cannot successfully penetrate their cells; we cannot knowledgeably sow discord and dissension in their ranks and thus weaken them from within; we cannot effectively counter their propaganda and messages of hate and clarion calls to violence; and, we cannot fulfill the most basic requirements of an effective counter-terrorist strategy: preempting and preventing terrorist operations and deterring their attacks.

"Until we recognize the importance of this vital prerequisite, America will remain perennially on the defensive: inherently reactive rather than proactive, deprived of the capacity to recognize, much less anticipate, important changes in our enemy’s modus operandi, recruitment and targeting."

[JeffC]

Part of thinking outside of the box is being able to find those in the local populace who can also see beyond that which they know.

One problem we might have with US born individuals from any given area is that their predispositions may not be any less offpoint then others. They may however have an easier time getting buy-in thru distant familial ties and thats always a starting point.

Hafez has some very good points also, some of which might be dangerous not to give due diligence to

I pointed to this article in my old Intelligence forum thread on my paper Chaotic Dynamics, particularly for those here who argued that the problem isn't mirror-imaging or ethno-centric bias, but just putting into place better training for the analysts. Training people without first altering their POV or mindset is typically an exercise in futility.

[Jedburgh]

I pointed to this article in my old Intelligence forum thread on my paper Chaotic Dynamics, particularly for those here who argued that the problem isn't mirror-imaging or ethno-centric bias, but just putting into place better training for the analysts. Training people without first altering their POV or mindset is typically an exercise in futility.

Jeff, again, mirror-imaging and ethno-theo-cultural-or-national biases are all classic analytic failings that have been recognized and understand to be seriously damaging to effective analysis by intelligence professionals since long before either of us was born. However, neither the various agencies nor the military can alter POV or mindset before they train a new analyst.

The ability to understand a spectrum of perceptions and various points of view, to effectively conduct alternatives analysis, to put themselves in the fully textured context of the other to "red team" the analysis - these all form an integral part of good training for analysts. To reiterate, it is not something that can be instilled prior to training analysts - it is an aspect of critical thinking that must be fused with the fundamental skills of analysis and integrated into analytic training from beginning to end.

[JeffC]

The ability to understand a spectrum of perceptions and various points of view, to effectively conduct alternatives analysis, to put themselves in the fully textured context of the other to "red team" the analysis - these all form an integral part of good training for analysts.

This implies that effective training regimens currently exist to solve this problem. If that's the case, then the solution is simple - provide more training. Unfortunately, study after study indicates that this ISN'T the case. Ever since the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, blue-badge analysts at CIA have undergone more training than ever before, and yet the problem still persists.

That tells me that the solution to this problem hasn't been found yet, and that the existing training regime isn't adequate to the task. Innovaton and outside-the-box thinking is typically what's called for in solving "hard problems" like this. Once a more effective method is found to solve this problem, it can be integrated into a required training set, but we don't appear to be there as of yet.