Afghanistan and U.S. Interests: Kotkin vs Nagl

[Bob's World]

BW,

Good comment!



I think that's a key insight. Sometimes it is possible to do more with less and a maximalist approach can make success less likely, not more. My biggest frustration with the Afghanistan debate is the competing strawman positions that our only two COA's are abandonment or a full-blown pop-centric COIN effort. There is a lot of middle ground between those two extremes - middle ground that should be fully explored.



Wow, you really don't like intel people. It's a shame you've apparrently had some bad ones along the way.

I just hate the pig-headed "threats R US" approach the community clings to, coupled with its complete disregard to the fact that they are completely clueless about the nature of this type of conflict; and absolutely no instituional motivation to learn or change. Dangerous. They send us pell mell in pursuit of tactical victories with absolute obliviouisness to the strategic risk they put as at.

[Entropy]

I just hate the pig-headed "threats R US" approach the community clings to, coupled with its complete disregard to the fact that they are completely clueless about the nature of this type of conflict; and absolutely no instituional motivation to learn or change. Dangerous. They send us pell mell in pursuit of tactical victories with absolute obliviouisness to the strategic risk they put as at.

I think there is something to that, but one should be careful painting with too broad a brush. Intel people do tend to have a "threat" mindset because that is the way we are trained (at least for military intel people), which is something I frequently complain about.

However, Commanders and policymakers have the ability to force change, starting with priority intelligence requirements (PIR's). PIR's, for those who don't know, are like a Commander's intent/guidance for intel. PIR's tell intel people what information a Commander wants in priority order. BW, have you looked at the CENTCOM or even USSOCOM's PIR's recently? It's been a couple of months since I've read them, but I recall they were very threat-centric.

As I pointed out in another thread on this topic, Commanders are in control of what intel they receive. They set the PIR's and the intel people are usually their subordinates. If they want less "threats R US" they have the authority and ability to change that through a variety of means.

One effective method is feedback - one of my biggest complaints about the ops side of the house is a lack of feedback. If what we're providing isn't relevant or useful, then we need to know. Too often there is zero feedback on products or briefings. I've learned through experience that this can be a warning sign, but many intel people interpret the silence as a sign they are adequately performing their job. In short, if your intel folks are overly focused on threats, all you need to do is tell them that they need to focus more on whatever area you want them to focus on. Additionally, make sure your PIR's reflect that.

There are systemic problems as well. Intel support is still setup with the assumption that HHQ will have more information and a better "picture" of what's going on and will push information down. In Afghanistan, Iraq and other irregular conflicts the knowledge gap is often reversed - individual units will know more about their AO than HHQ, so much of the intel that passes down is wrong, irrelevant, or is "well duh" information the local unit already knows. I know this is an issue that's heavily debated in the MI community, but as an AF guy I don't really know where things are headed or what changes, if any, have been made.

Finally, the strategy problems (particularly for Afghanistan) affect intel as well. As you know, the intel requirements for an AQ-focused, limited CT mission are much different than the requirements for a population-centric COIN effort. When our ends ways and means are not clear then intel support is going to suffer because requirements will conflict and collection and analytical resources are limited. So your perception about intel could, I think, reflect a bigger conflict on strategy.

[Bob's World]

I think there is something to that, but one should be careful painting with too broad a brush. Intel people do tend to have a "threat" mindset because that is the way we are trained (at least for military intel people), which is something I frequently complain about.

However, Commanders and policymakers have the ability to force change, starting with priority intelligence requirements (PIR's). PIR's, for those who don't know, are like a Commander's intent/guidance for intel. PIR's tell intel people what information a Commander wants in priority order. BW, have you looked at the CENTCOM or even USSOCOM's PIR's recently? It's been a couple of months since I've read them, but I recall they were very threat-centric.

As I pointed out in another thread on this topic, Commanders are in control of what intel they receive. They set the PIR's and the intel people are usually their subordinates. If they want less "threats R US" they have the authority and ability to change that through a variety of means.

One effective method is feedback - one of my biggest complaints about the ops side of the house is a lack of feedback. If what we're providing isn't relevant or useful, then we need to know. Too often there is zero feedback on products or briefings. I've learned through experience that this can be a warning sign, but many intel people interpret the silence as a sign they are adequately performing their job. In short, if your intel folks are overly focused on threats, all you need to do is tell them that they need to focus more on whatever area you want them to focus on. Additionally, make sure your PIR's reflect that.

There are systemic problems as well. Intel support is still setup with the assumption that HHQ will have more information and a better "picture" of what's going on and will push information down. In Afghanistan, Iraq and other irregular conflicts the knowledge gap is often reversed - individual units will know more about their AO than HHQ, so much of the intel that passes down is wrong, irrelevant, or is "well duh" information the local unit already knows. I know this is an issue that's heavily debated in the MI community, but as an AF guy I don't really know where things are headed or what changes, if any, have been made.

Finally, the strategy problems (particularly for Afghanistan) affect intel as well. As you know, the intel requirements for an AQ-focused, limited CT mission are much different than the requirements for a population-centric COIN effort. When our ends ways and means are not clear then intel support is going to suffer because requirements will conflict and collection and analytical resources are limited. So your perception about intel could, I think, reflect a bigger conflict on strategy.

We must get sound strategy out in front of the problem. And here of course is the rub. Find 10 "experts" on this conflict and get 10 conflicting answers. Add to that our "intel leads ops" approach, and you have what we have.

Are commanders, planners, and ops all innocent? Clearly not, plenty of fame and shame to go around; but as an institution it is the intel community that is the most dogged in its refusal to evolve and focus on the environment over the threats that emerge from that environment. They analyze symptoms rather than causes, and defend that as their right and their duty.

I won't excuse them.

[MikeF]

We must get sound strategy out in front of the problem. And here of course is the rub. Find 10 "experts" on this conflict and get 10 conflicting answers. Add to that our "intel leads ops" approach, and you have what we have.

Sir, I think it is more of an process problem as Enthropy noted:

There are systemic problems as well. Intel support is still setup with the assumption that HHQ will have more information and a better "picture" of what's going on and will push information down. In Afghanistan, Iraq and other irregular conflicts the knowledge gap is often reversed - individual units will know more about their AO than HHQ, so much of the intel that passes down is wrong, irrelevant, or is "well duh" information the local unit already knows. I know this is an issue that's heavily debated in the MI community, but as an AF guy I don't really know where things are headed or what changes, if any, have been made.

Transition from top-down to bottom-up intelligence collection and analysis is a day-to-night adjustment. I observed many analysts that simply edited rather than analyze intel pushed forward. It's kind of like assuming that IW is just the converse of UW so if you are trained at UW then you can easily do IW.

The best analysts that I observed passed intelligence horizontally AND vertically to the appropriate stakeholders. The best product I received from higher during my last deployment in Diyala Province was passed down from division. A heads up marine intel dude in Anbar received reports of AQ trafficking/smuggling from a sheik in diyala. I was able to consolidate his reports and add them to my own in order to arrest that sheik and keep him in jail.

My belief is that as more intel guys do deployments on the line and more combat experienced combined arms guys transition to intel, it'll sort itself out although egos and ricebowls will always hamper mission success.

v/r

Mike