Company Level Intelligence Led Operations

[wm]

That is not happening and that is the point. The traditional higher to lower in this fight does not work. That was apparent before we "transformed" the BCT; that transformation certainly complicated life. The company effort is centered on its AO and it drives the continual assessment process.

Tom,

The "traditional higher to lower never did work in my experience. If we try to make it work today with number of sensors available, we will overwhelm the poor company--my firehose. Maybe having some smart analysts who know how to pull data, know where to pull it from, and have the right pipes and wires to do so would be worth the investment at the company level, but let's not stick a DCGS terminal in every maneuver company.

[wm]

WM said:To which I'd respond that the 'Division' idea only really worked two places -- in garrison around the world; and in combat ONLY in the desert (North Africa WW II, DS/DS and OIF I); the rest of the time from the revolution forward we have, regardless of the existence of Divisions essentially fought as Regiments, RCTs or Bdes -- so what we really did was not a push down; it was simply an alignment of resources to the proper working level. Long overdue. I'd further suggest the only reason the Division still exists is to justify a slew of MG and BG spaces.

Companies should have been de-facto bns (in the sense I think you mean) many years ago and should be even more independent that they now are.

I think Tom expresses it well.

Ken,
I can't disagree with your point about divisions' primary value being related to the total one and two button count out there (if I remember the section on GO strength in the US Code correctly the 3 and 4 button count is also a function of the total number of 1 and 2 buttons). However, the division (more accurately the GS elements of the DISCOM) still does some log stuff that I don't think the Army has figured out how to push down to the BCT without making the tail too big (which it probably already is anyway). And I'm not really sure how we ought to be structuring combat aviation from a C2persective either --But this thread is not about C2 and headquarters functions.

[ODB]

After rereading many of the posts in this thread there sems to be 2 different schools of thought. The analyasis portion at company level I can see. I can see a go to guy in the company that 1. pulls in all intel from patrols, raids, etc...any operation involving elements from the company. 2. receives all intel from higher siphons it for pertainent data. As some have said before a LNO type role.

I cannot agree with conventional units handling assets. There is enough issues with those units who can and the agencies involved. Too many, tapping a shallow pool. The thought of many more people attempting to do this (which many already are)instead of going through the proper channels IMO is part of the problem, not a solution. When they do this and report it as intel, makes second sourcing it very difficult especially when many times it is the same source going to multiple locations to make money. The solution is hand these guys off to the proper entity to handle and all will benefit from it. Honestly I vehemently disagree with conventional forces tasking, training, paying......nothing else needs to be said.

[jcustis]

After rereading many of the posts in this thread there sems to be 2 different schools of thought. The analyasis portion at company level I can see. I can see a go to guy in the company that 1. pulls in all intel from patrols, raids, etc...any operation involving elements from the company. 2. receives all intel from higher siphons it for pertainent data. As some have said before a LNO type role.

I cannot agree with conventional units handling assets.

I'd have to say ixna on running sources too, and we don't train these hard chargers for that. I think the more appropriate term would be "information" collection cell.

What you reference above is exactly how I helped train up a Reserve unit's cell during a pre-deploy work up. The best guys for this work have a penchant for data, like a sports junky who studies and memorizes box scores, for example.

[Ken White]

After rereading many of the posts in this thread there sems to be 2 different schools of thought. The analyasis portion at company level I can see. I can see a go to guy in the company that 1. pulls in all intel from patrols, raids, etc...any operation involving elements from the company. 2. receives all intel from higher siphons it for pertainent data. As some have said before a LNO type role.

Well, more correctly, we can agree on that...

I cannot agree with conventional units handling assets. There is enough issues with those units who can and the agencies involved. Too many, tapping a shallow pool. The thought of many more people attempting to do this (which many already are)instead of going through the proper channels IMO is part of the problem, not a solution. When they do this and report it as intel, makes second sourcing it very difficult especially when many times it is the same source going to multiple locations to make money. The solution is hand these guys off to the proper entity to handle and all will benefit from it. Honestly I vehemently disagree with conventional forces tasking, training, paying......nothing else needs to be said.

While disagreeing on this. In a perfect world, I'd agree with you but having worked both sides of the SF/Conventional fence, the problem is that just as all Battalions and Companies are not great, All A (and B) Teams are not great. I've always had a suspicion that too many Intel folks, when they were in Kindergarten, got a report card that said "Doesn't share well with others." The Intel side is spread too thin, in a war never has enough really well trained people and has a bad tendency to withhold info from users -- or tailor it.

So while I agree with you in principle, in practice a unit that wants to know what's going on its AO (particularly in an urban environment) has little choice; I've done it --as have thousands of others -- and it works. It works without disrupting the 'real' intel types, too.

Edited to add:

On re reading this after a good dinner, it seems more brusque than intended; few more thoughts:

Remember an informant and an agent aren't the same thing. I'd also note that nature hates a vacuum and something will rush to fill it. If units believe they're getting stiffed on Intel -- and many do (see below) -- they'll do something to fix that shortfall -- and I suggest three things about that. First, they should, it's a Commanders responsibility. Second, better to do it on an organized basis and exercise some control rather them have them do it under the table and possibly cause the problems you cite.

The third factor involves the Intel community (and to an extent the SO/SF community) and its operating methods. As a team Intel sergeant, I was several times ordered not to share Intel with neighboring units on the grounds that the guy who gave the order (An FA MAJ on an SF tour) determined they did not have the need to know -- even though usually they had specifically asked for certain info. I did what I was told but I did argue about it and I did not then and do not now, many years later, believe he made the right call. I have seen that syndrome many time both before and since that period. I have no problem with protecting sources and methods but I have too often seen those things used as a reason to deny needed intel to units. Knowledge is power and all that. I have also seen time and again reports by troops on the ground (Inf, LRS and SF) get ignored by Intel types at higher echelons even if multiple troop reports corroborated the item and they ignored it on the basis their technical means couldn't verify it. Numerous variations on those themes over the years. The point is that if the Intel guys want to do it all, they need to convince their customers -- the Troops -- that they're a part of the solution and not a part of the problem.

I have also responded on intel (local, theater and national) driven ops and have found that errors exceeded accuracy by a factor of about 2:1.

I understand all that's better now. I'll accept that it may be better but I suggest, as I said above, there are not enough intel folks to do what needs to be done. If it needs to be done, better to do it with some control than ignore the problem. Intel driven ops need to share ALL the info they have with the guys doing the work; withholding and dissembling get people killed needlessly.

[Ken White]

...However, the division (more accurately the GS elements of the DISCOM) still does some log stuff that I don't think the Army has figured out how to push down to the BCT without making the tail too big (which it probably already is anyway). And I'm not really sure how we ought to be structuring combat aviation from a C2persective either -- But this thread is not about C2 and headquarters functions.

I understand both issues and a few others are being worked -- and that there is some resistance to doing so. Plus ca change...

Be interesting to see how it works out over the next few years.

[Ron Humphrey]

it very common for those who know not to know who needs to know until after they really needed to know it

[ODB]

Orginally posted by Ken White:

Remember an informant and an agent aren't the same thing.

How easily terminology can make a difference, especially in dealing with this subject. Wonder if that has been the difference in some of the meanings and due to the terms used has misconstrued the point being made?

The third factor involves the Intel community (and to an extent the SO/SF community) and its operating methods. As a team Intel sergeant, I was several times ordered not to share Intel with neighboring units on the grounds that the guy who gave the order (An FA MAJ on an SF tour) determined they did not have the need to know -- even though usually they had specifically asked for certain info. I did what I was told but I did argue about it and I did not then and do not now, many years later, believe he made the right call. I have seen that syndrome many time both before and since that period. I have no problem with protecting sources and methods but I have too often seen those things used as a reason to deny needed intel to units. Knowledge is power and all that. I have also seen time and again reports by troops on the ground (Inf, LRS and SF) get ignored by Intel types at higher echelons even if multiple troop reports corroborated the item and they ignored it on the basis their technical means couldn't verify it. Numerous variations on those themes over the years. The point is that if the Intel guys want to do it all, they need to convince their customers -- the Troops -- that they're a part of the solution and not a part of the problem.

I believe this truely gets to the heart of the problem. An old S3 of mine always told S2 "You look like you got a secret in your pocket and your not sharing." This happens all too much. Understandable at some levels but also avoidable. Experienced this in Afghanistan between conventional forces on an op and OGA on an op in the same area at the same time with neither knowing prior. This should have been handle at the G level staff prior, we were OPCON to the division. One of my biggest frustrations is simply no one is more special than someone else and if done correctly everyone looks good. Just don't understand the mentality of these folks.

Completely agree there is a huge intel problem and unfortunately those who have the ability to change it are not here reading this. A lot of it comes down to personal relationships and the ability to interact at levels beyond email.

Great posts and love drawing from others experience. Thanks

[Jedburgh]

....Maybe having some smart analysts who know how to pull data, know where to pull it from, and have the right pipes and wires to do so would be worth the investment at the company level, but let's not stick a DCGS terminal in every maneuver company.

Given the length of the thread, I'd just like to reiterate what I said a page of posts or so ago:

The critical issue is manning. There simply aren't enough analysts / collectors to go around. And there isn't going to be anytime in the forseeable future. In any case, the majority of MI troops who do get cut away to work at Co level are going to be junior enlisted - and at that level (with the exception of the rare few with true natural talent) they're not going to have any more ability than those non-MI troops you already have who you've tasked to perform the mission in the absence of formal intel support. And in the rare instance where you do get an MI NCO sent to work at the company level in an combat arms unit - five will get you ten that he was let go to you for a reason.

Personally, I think a good combat arms SFC/MSG who is already settled in the unit has far more capability to fill that operational need than a SPC/SGT MI troop who comes in as a new attachment to fill a temporary need. Learning "databases and systems" is the easy part - being able to integrate it into an operational context is quite another. An experienced NCO is always going to be better at putting it into context for the commander than a cherry analyst learning the ropes.

Remember an informant and an agent aren't the same thing.

Critical differentiation. Running sources is significantly different than handling a walk-in, or even just talking to people on patrol. The company needs to know how to handle all that raw human information coming in from the indig, and they have to have somebody to put it together. When someone suddenly decides to spill, you can't wait for someone else to come in from outside and handle it - you have to be able to do it in-house, and in a manner that would encourage other indig to do the same thing in the future.

Again - we've probably come to the limit of what may be discussed appropriately on the human sources subject on the open forum. ALCON: please avoid going any deeper with this aspect of the topic.

[Ken White]

...Completely agree there is a huge intel problem and unfortunately those who have the ability to change it are not here reading this. A lot of it comes down to personal relationships and the ability to interact at levels beyond email...

that trend will continue. Right now, the personal relationships do make a difference.

Oh, FWIW, the incidents I mentioned; I was a very young SSG. Less than a couple-three years later, I'd have ignored him and slipped it to them anyway; gotta do what's right -- which may not always be what your boss wants...

[ODB]

Oh, FWIW, the incidents I mentioned; I was a very young SSG. Less than a couple-three years later, I'd have ignored him and slipped it to them anyway; gotta do what's right -- which may not always be what your boss wants...

Oh how true......no reduction boards for me anymore.....if only more knew their power and used it for good. Too many career oriented in the ranks today, made it further than I ever thought I would. Everything from this point is just a bonus.......

A wise old man once told me "Do what your rank can handle".

[William F. Owen]

Critical differentiation. Running sources is significantly different than handling a walk-in, or even just talking to people on patrol. The company needs to know how to handle all that raw human information coming in from the indig, and they have to have somebody to put it together. When someone suddenly decides to spill, you can't wait for someone else to come in from outside and handle it - you have to be able to do it in-house, and in a manner that would encourage other indig to do the same thing in the future.

Without getting into detail, this is exactly what manifested itself in the early days of Ulster/NI and is a source of my concern. Back in he 1970-75 time period, Coy and even BN Int was a cowboy game by all accounts, with BN IOs/S3 s running informal networks of HUMINT, and at some human cost.

In my experience, -ideally- I am not sure you would want someone engaging in the process described without having been selected and trained for that task

[davidbfpo]

"Walk-ins" are a much neglected aspect of law enforcement intelligence gathering and there are examples in UK mainland policing, during the Irish Troubles, where the "walk-in" was rejected and later found to be costly. They happen in the criminal, as distinct from ideological arena. The ability to listen is the key, perhaps police officers are better at that than soldiers? The "walk-in" has made their decision by time they reach you, ensuring their security is necessary and determined by the situation. Once the initial downloading has been given and needs independent / trained assessment the "walk-in" can leave (in the UK).

The biggest snags with "walk-ins" are that it maybe a one-off, there are those who like to talk - the Walter Mitty factor, potentially are a deception (rare in ordinary law enforcement) and the information is known to very few, leading to issues of verification and follow-up.

An alternative to "walk-in" is the confidential and usually anonymous phone or email and now text/SMS hotline. Crime stoppers being the most well known and in Northern Ireland this was prominiently advertised on security force vehicles - although I am not aware of how effective it was. Alas instead of talking to a person it is an ansaphone.

Slightly off topic, Company Level Int Ops, maybe.

davidbfpo

[Ron Humphrey]

While avoiding implications in current AO's I think there are some good examples from detention that point to where the expectations for formal training are often overdone.

A good officer learns to know the "terrain" simply by actually being in it. For those of us who took the time to listen to concerns of the population within the context of understanding that there were usually agendas at play it was very simple to track what was really happening in the jailhouse. If you learn the names of inmates and simple groupings as in who belonged to or hung out with what groups then it became much easier to identify and address issues much sooner. If you haven't seen someone around that usually does X at Y time on any given day then maybe you keep an eye out for G who usually does Y with X every day and if you have developed a basic rapport you end up with some discussion during which you can ask G why X isn't doing Y that day.

For most anyone this is a natural habit and so with just a little fine tuning can become an effective tool. It doesn't and should always be a difficult or tedious as it is often made out to be, and I'm concerned we do ourselves and our soldiers a disservice when we don't admit that. I would doubt many of the enlisted in MI wouldn't tell you that if others have concerns that they are getting in over their head they have little to no problem coming to you and saying : "Hey whats the deal"

Just my 1 1/2 ...

[wm]

The critical issue is manning. There simply aren't enough analysts / collectors to go around. And there isn't going to be anytime in the forseeable future. In any case, the majority of MI troops who do get cut away to work at Co level are going to be junior enlisted - and at that level (with the exception of the rare few with true natural talent) they're not going to have any more ability than those non-MI troops you already have who you've tasked to perform the mission in the absence of formal intel support. And in the rare instance where you do get an MI NCO sent to work at the company level in an combat arms unit - five will get you ten that he was let go to you for a reason.

Sounds like a basic force structure problem to me. Last time I checked, MI was an inverted pyramid (or maybe a diamond)--a few entry level folks and a whole pile of more senior folks telling them what to do or analyzing the fruits of the junior folks' efforts. This is a paradox, methinks: We need lots of experienced folks to be good analysts, but we don't access enough folks to give them the experience they need to be good.

[Randy Brown]

As someone with one boot daily in the Army Lessons-Learned community, and one in a BCT intel shop on the M-day side, I've found this thread extremely enlightening. I've been inspired to write-up a short article on "company intel ops resources" for a monthly Lessons-Learned Integration (L2I) newsletter I edit for the Iowa Army National Guard.

I'm writing for two purposes:

• To ask for your help in identifying articles and resources I should mention in my article.
• To ask for any insights as to how the Army's new "Every Soldier is a Sensor" (aka "ES2"--the Army still can't get enough of squared and cubed acronyms, observes the "L2I" guy) individual Warrior Task can best be trained/implemented.

(By the way, is the ES2 concept--"it's not just the Intel soldiers who need to keep their eyes and ears open"--really all that new? I've got a bundle of cigars wrapped in a map of Antietam that says it isn't.)

References on Company-Level Intel

1LT Cola's article on "Suggestions for Creating a Company-Level Intel Cell" (Infantry, MAR/APR 08) will probably be the lead-in to my article, and Tom Odom has earlier in this thread pointed out a couple of CALL pubs that are worth their weights in precious metals. these are:

• 07-01 "Tactical Intelligence" newsletter
• 07-26 "Tactical Site Exploitation"
• 08-05 "Company-level Stabilty Operations and Support Operations"

(The commander-and-staff verion of CALL's "best-selling" First 100 Days series also covers some applicable intel and TSE stuff in brief. There are also some relevant and user-customizable GTAs.)

I've also seen cited here 1LT McGovern's "Organize for Company Intelligence Cells in COIN" (Fires Bulletin , JAN/FEB 08). And, of course, there's the Dr. Kilcullen's "28 Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level Counterinsurgency" (Iosphere, Summer 06)

What have I missed?

Every Soldier is a Sensor

ES2 briefings and resources are available as part of the First Army Commander's Toolkit, which deploying commanders use to plan and document their unit's mobilization training. This is a CD-ROM that is/has migrated to a Web-based tool; I'm pretty sure that, if you need a copy, CALL either has or can get the latest for you. There are resources, regulations, and requirements for each Warrior Task and Theater-Specific Individual Readiness Training (TSIRT). ES2 is one of these.

While ES2 training seems to sync with much of the discussion in this thread--soldiers don't run sources, but they do encounter informants; most soldiers aren't analysts or even collators, but they are collection-assets--the real, hands-on stuff seems to deal only with tactical questioning: "how to ask non-leading and compound questions" kind of stuff.

Beyond the tactical-questioning piece, and maybe the nuts-and-bolts on how to bag-and-tag enemy information, are there any areas on which a battalion- or company-level commander should focus "ES2" training, SOP-development, and other efforts? Any general (OPSEC, you know) suggestions on how best to train ANY of these skills?

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your comments.

[Jedburgh]

Randy, I also suggest you copy this same post on the BCKS COIN Operations forum. You may also find the thread on Battalion Level and Below COIN Products, Tools & SOPs to be of interest.

[Tom Odom]

Tom,

The "traditional higher to lower never did work in my experience. If we try to make it work today with number of sensors available, we will overwhelm the poor company--my firehose. Maybe having some smart analysts who know how to pull data, know where to pull it from, and have the right pipes and wires to do so would be worth the investment at the company level, but let's not stick a DCGS terminal in every maneuver company.

WM

We are not advocating a company intel plug for the national fire hose. As I have said this is about collating and analyzing intel gathered by the manuever company in its own AO and then passing that collated/analyzed to higher. The taps into the national system should stay at BN and BCT via the S2 sections.

Tom

[wm]

WM

We are not advocating a company intel plug for the national fire hose. As I have said this is about collating and analyzing intel gathered by the manuever company in its own AO and then passing that collated/analyzed to higher. The taps into the national system should stay at BN and BCT via the S2 sections.

Tom

Maybe I'm not getting it or maybe we are just using different language to say the same thing. Your post above seems to me to be sort of what I was saying about the company needing the ability to maintain situational awareness and understanding of what is happening within its defined AO. I'm not sure of the need to pass this on to higher, except as a form of institutional record keeping--Why do we need to have companies sending along PERINTREP, Daily INTSUM, etc to Bn? Spot reports and daily opreps are more germane IMHO. The Bn 2 needs to sit with the 3 and glean appropriate data from those reports. The entire Bn staff needs to ensure the companies know the CCIR (Commander's Critical Information Requirements) and respond to them. As far as I can recall, CCIR include both enemy and friendly info.

What I am suggesting that seems somewhat new is sometimes (oftentimes?) companies need more support than they can generate locally. To get it in a timely way, they ought to be able to go straight to the source, but they probably need someone smart enough to know where that source is. In an efficiently and effectively networked environment, a company should not need to pass an RFI up through Bn and Bde. It should be able to pull what it thinks it wants/needs directly from any entity in the intel community. This is what I understand as timely/responsive (AKA "actionable") intelligence.

However, given the Byzantine/"need to know" shackled world that is the intel community, asking a maneuver guy to keep track of who is the "go to" guy for info, is asking too much. So maybe we should give the maneuver element an intel knowledge manager (perhaps "expediter" is a better term), someone who knows the intel filing cabinets well enough to go pull data out of the files for whomever he/she supports directly and then explains how good (or not so good) the info might be.

[Ken White]

Works for me and has been done before -- successfully.

I think a part of the problem is that all of us are saying pretty much the same thing with minor variants based on personal experience and preference -- and that happens in the operating world constantly. All Intel entities, all Battalions and Companies, even all ODA and ODB are not equal; some will always do some things better than others -- and differently than others. Seems to me the key is to not overstructure the process and to accept variations on the theme that the personalities of the day and time make work.