MG Flynn (on intell mainly)

[Entropy]

Hmmm. A call for a shift from a threat-centric approach to a populace-centric approach; with intel being the ones who need to change the most.

I have read this somewhere before...

(though I do find amusing all the intel guys who have been pumping threat threat threat up their commander's backside for years now all crying how they were victims, and only giving the boss what he wanted.... Bull. If I had a dollar for every time I've asked the intel guys to stop dronning on about HVIs and to give us some info on the environment and the populace; and gave back 90 cents for everytime those same intel guys smugly replied "that's not our job, we just do threats," I'd still be rich. Sure there are plenty of commanders who only want to know about the bad guys, but that doesn't relieve one of the duty to develop the critical intel he doesn't ask for.)

Leadership comes from the top and Afghanistan, until very recently, has not been a COIN effort, population-centric or otherwise. Until this past year, resources for Afghanistan, especially intelligence, were under-resourced for anything but the explicit missions we were given which was not COIN. Those were decisions made at the highest levels. What you seem to be suggesting is that the intel people should have diverted some of those intel resources (collection and analysis) away from the Commander's explicit intent to something else. That's simply not going to happen.

Some of us who have been invested in Afghanistan for many years - long before the current COINdinista crowd became interested - took it upon ourselves to explore many of the issues you've raised in this forum in an attempt to gain a deeper understand of the environment and context in which we conduct operations. For me personally, this was done almost entirely on my own time and at my own expense (as my private library of Afghanistan publications attests) and consisted almost entirely of unclassified, open-source material. Why? Because I had no authority to formally task collection assets or to submit RFI's to relevant agencies to collect such information. Why? Because the Commander's intent, as clearly spelled out in his intelligence requirements, did not focus on these areas and our authority to task assets and spend analytical resources derives directly from those requirements. Outside of a good-old-boys network and informal RFI's (ie. emailing my buddies in other agencies) the system is explicitly designed to prevent intelligence assets from being used (or misused, depending on one's perspective) contrary to a Commander's published intel requirements. Even if I got my immediate Commander's approval to ask some of these questions, they were shot down at the theater level because of, guess what? The theater PIR's!

So your suggestion that intel people have a responsibility to "develop critical intel he doesn't ask for" is not possible for two reasons: First, we can't get information to develop such intel because collection is not driven by analysts but Commander PIR's. No information, no authority to collect information means no analysis and no answers to the relevant questions. Secondly, which intel is "critical" and which intel isn't is defined by the Commander and not the intel professional. Obviously if an intel person thinks something might be critical he/she needs to inform the Commander immediately, but it's still the Commander who decides. Additionally, because intel assets (both collection and analysis) are always limited, the system is purposely designed to prevent the very thing you are asking for - which is diverting assets away from a Commander's stated desire.

As late as last month the theater requirements had not substantially changed from what they've been for the past several years, which is largely threat-focused. Until they do change, pop-centric COIN information is inevitably going to play second fiddle. Maybe things are different today with the publication of this report and the orders that were reportedly promulgated through official channels. I don't yet know.

This passage in the MG Flynn's report struck me particularly:

The problem is that these analysts – the core of them bright, enthusiastic, and hungry – are starved for information from the feld, so starved, in fact, that many say their jobs feel more like fortune telling than serious detective work.

Yes, that's been an enduring problem and it's a big reason why the vast majority of my personal research over the years has been confined academic and open-source work. That problem is not an intelligence problem, but a Command and leadership problem. The intelligence function cannot force units to provide us information - that can only be directed by Commanders. So, again, the issue comes back to Commanders and command responsibility.

Finally, if your intel guys are smugly giving you information and intelligence that you don't want - indeed, information that you are hostile to, then why are they still your intel guys? Where is the accountability? Intel people should be held accountable like anyone else and if they are not performing or if they are feeding you a line of BS then they need to be put in their place and held accountable. If my immediate Commander wants info that falls outside the scope of the HHQ and theater PIR's, then I'll try like hell to provide that while explaining the LIMFACs on collecting new information and answering that request. In essence, all I can usually do is search existing information which is often insufficient. So, as MG Flynn said in his report:

This memorandum is aimed at commanders as well as intelligence professionals. If intelligence is to help us succeed in the conduct of the war, the commanders of companies, battalions, brigades, and regions must clearly prioritize the questions they need answered in support of our counterinsurgency strategy, direct intelligence officials to answer them, and hold accountable those who fail.

That about says it all, IMO.

And, just to be clear, I do think there are valid criticisms against intel people and the intel profession and system, particularly military intel people. Yes, we, as a group, are more comfortable with threats, but realize that's how we are trained. It would be interesting if any Army people here could tell us what the current MI curriculum is at the school house and how much of it, if any, deals with intelligence support to COIN. I know in the Air Force and Navy the school-houses have not changed much and support to large-scale conventional warfare requirements dominates. For imagery analysts, full-motion video analysis is still an afterthought in the imagery course. Our new IA's at my predator unit get almost no training in FMV exploitation despite the fact this is 95% of their job. That is one place we can start cleaning house.