Military – Page 307 – Public Intelligence Blog

UPDATE: A colleague from within asked us to highlight this quote with the observation that neither the US IC nor DoD have any clue how to execute. We agree. Both lack leadership with vision and multinational panache; they simply do not know what they do not know because they have both wasted the last 21 years refusing to listen or learn.

P.23. They must embrace open-source, population-centric information as the lifeblood of their analytical work. They must open their doors to anyone who is willing to exchange information, including Afghans and NGOs as well as the U.S. military and its allies. As General Martin E. Dempsey, commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, recently stated, “…[T]he best information, the most important intelligence, and the context that provides the best understanding come from the bottom up, not from the top down.”

The Cold War notion that open-source information is “second class” is a dangerous, outmoded cliché. Lieutenant General Samuel V. Wilson, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, captured it perfectly: “Ninety percent of intelligence comes from open sources. The other 10 percent, the clandestine work, is just the more dramatic.

News Story with Links: Spies Like Us: Top U.S. Intel Officer Says Spooks Could Learn From Journos

Good News: Some good people in the field have finally re-invented half the wheel–the company-level bottom-up half. Unfortunately they have absolutely no idea what can be gotten from the rest of the world (non US citizens without clearances); they are jammed into a legacy system that demands at least a SECRET clearance; there is no Multinational Engagement Network that is totally open albeit commercially encrypted, and therefore this is going nowhere. We could fix this on leftover loose-change, but ONLY if DoD intel leadership will accept the iconoclastic multinational solutions that have been in gestation for 21 years.

Bad News: CIA and DIA are still broken and not likely to get fixed anytime soon. The Human Terrain Teams (HTT) are an utter disgrace. DoD commanders still have not figured out Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and OSINT does not appear in this report, nor does Reach-Back, 24/7 tribally-nuanced on demand web-cam translator services, and on and on and on. Army G-2 is non-existent–Army is simply not trained, equipped, nor organized to do tactical intelligence in small wars. Neither is the Marine Corps, but they adapt better. What is so very tragic is that this is a problem that can be fixed FAST with Multinational Engagement and a proper use of distributed linguistic and cultural assets. All it needs is an internationalist mind-set, which no one now serving in DIA or CIA actually can muster. All of the pathologies we have been writing about since 1988 are to be found in Afghanistan, and none of the solutions that many, many authors have written about for the last 21 years are even on the table.

Journal: MILNET Selected Headlines

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Peace Intelligence

British Search And Rescue Team Turned Away From Port-Au-Prince

There were reports that the airport at Port-au-Prince had run out of aviation fuel, one of the factors that is understood to have led the US military to close it. . . . The scene at Santo Domingo airport was one of chaos, uncertainty and often despair for aid workers.

graphic africa collage — Ethno-Colonial BIG Africa

Phi Beta Iota: Lesson learned by the USMC the hard way (as of 1992): need Forward Area Refueling Points (FARP) in the FIRST lift.

U.S. Army Africa Boss: ‘I Feel Like The Lone Ranger…'

“Africa’s not high on America’s priority list these days.

Sometimes I feel like the Lone Ranger trying to get people to bring resources to bear out here.”

I had pointed out in an earlier interview that U.S. Army Africa and Africa Command in general are notably absent from the wars in Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, conflicts Garrett said are “currently the world’s two deadliest.”

For Israel, a Reckoning

A new global movement is challenging Israel's violations of international law with the same strategies that were used against apartheid

Phi Beta Iota: Israeli influence on the US Government has been as bad as post-war Nazi influence on the Cold War ubbas–both have spawned policies that have murdered and displaced millions, with attendant atrocities.

Pakistan: U.S.-Backed Broadcast Begins

Phi Beta Iota: Too little too late and they almost certainly have no idea about the history of the Pashtun Peace Army.

Taliban steps up violence in Afghanistan

Recent Pakistani military operations in insurgent strongholds in Pakistan also have driven greater numbers of Pakistan-based Taliban back into Afghanistan, the officer said.

UK plans ‘trust fund' to woo Taliban fighters

Phi Beta Iota: Turn in one weapon, get enough money for two…or go enlist and training and food along with a new weapon. Money corrupts and it is not a substitute for Whole of Government Stabilization & Reconstruction accomplishments.

How To Apply ‘Smart Power' In Yemen

Developing a coherent strategy focused on the right objectives is important, and hard to do. The country team in any normal American embassy (like the one in Sana) does not have the staff, resources or experience to do so. The limited American military presence in Yemen does not either. Despite years of talk about the need to develop this kind of capability in the State Department or elsewhere in Washington, it does not exist. It must be built now, and quickly.

Phi Beta Iota: Start with Tony Zinni's The Battle for Peace and implement Robert Steele's DoD OSINT-M4IS2 Strategy along with Whole of Government Intelligence (Decision-Support).

2010/01/14

Reference: NGO Guide for the Military

Key Players, Military, Mobile, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

cover dod ngo — NGO Guide for the Military

Phi Beta Iota: Tip of the Hat to MILNET for noticing and Federation of American Scientists (FAS) for posting.

FAS commentary with additional links recommended also.

A good start but less than 20% of what is needed. This should be a living online directory that spans all military occupational specialties (e.g. communications, engineering, water treatment, power) and it should have a multinational information-sharing and sense-making component including of course reach-back to the Multinational Decision Support Center, wherever that might be located. It would also benefit from a revitalization of DARPA's STRONG ANGEL and TOOZL, and a new pilot project to integrate Twitter and UNICEF's RapidSMS into the overall “outside the wire” C4I campaign plan.

2010/01/13

Journal: Endless Money for War, No Checks & Balances

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Military, Strategy

It is becoming increasingly clear that 1981 was a watershed year in the history of the American political economy. What checks and balances that remained broke down. Deregulation, for example, took off and the bomb of private debt exploded (recall the chart I circulated earlier). The trade deficit skyrocketed after 1981, and deindustrialization, which started in the late 1960s took off with a vengeance. The growth in real income stagnated and gap between the rich and poor began to expand rapidly.

The same collapse of political-eocnomic checks and balances occurred in what was already a poorly checked defense sector. During the first 30 years of the Cold War with the Soviet superpower, between 1950 and 1980, the defense budget never experienced more than three consecutive years of real growth (i.e., after removing the effects of inflation) before going into decline. During war and peace, the inflation adjusted budget oscillated around a relatively constant or slightly growing median value (if one believes the Pentagons estimates of inflation). That pattern changed radically with the ascent of Ronald Reagan to the presidency. The budget began to grow much more rapidly and the checking process weakened markedly during the 1980s and especially the mid 1990s, when the budget began increasing even though the superpower threat evaporated.

With the election of George Bush II in 2000, any remaining checks on budget growth came off (as can been seen in Slide 1 of my June 2002 statement to Congress, which can be downloaded here), and then, spurred on by the politics of fear which enveloped the US after 911, the checking process to ceased completely and the defense budgeting process spun out of control, as a part of it went to fight never ending guerrilla wars but most of it went to propping up a modernization program and force structure that is an outmoded legacy of the Cold War.

Now, if there is any truth to the attached AP report, Bush's insane madness has captured President Obama and he is power boosting the defense budget further, albeit with feeble promises of small declines in the future, which will no doubt be forgotten in the unfolding politics of the permanent war economy.

Chuck

AP Exclusive: Obama wants $33 billion more for war

By ANNE GEARAN and ANNE FLAHERTY

The Associated Press January 12, 2010

The Obama administration plans to ask Congress for an additional $33 billion to fight unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, on top of a record request for $708 billion for the Defense Department next year, The Associated Press has learned.

2010/01/122010/01/12

Journal: Yemen, Guns, Tribes, & Deja Vu

02 China, 03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Ethics, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence, Policy

Three Guns for Every Person

Only Fools Rush Into Yemen

By PATRICK COCKBURN January 11, 2010

The mounting crisis in the country only attracted notice when a Nigerian student is revealed to have been “trained” in Yemen by al-Qa’ida to detonate explosives in his underpants on plane heading for Detroit. But this botched attack has led to the US and Britain starting to become entangled in one of the more violent countries in the world. The problems of Yemen are social, economic and political, and stretch back to the civil war in Yemen in the 1960s, but Gordon Brown believes solutions can be found by holding a one day summit on Yemen to “tackle extremism.”

Al-Qa’ida in Yemen is small, its active members numbering only 200-300 lightly armed militants in a country of 22 million people who are estimated to own no less than 60 million weapons. Al-Qa’ida has room to operate because central government authority barely extends outside the cities and because it can ally itself with the many opponents of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in office since the 1970s.

Continue reading “Journal: Yemen, Guns, Tribes, & Deja Vu”

2010/01/112010/01/11

Journal: Comment on DIA Potential

Ethics, Key Players, Methods & Process, Military, Mobile, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Reform, Strategy, Threats

The QDR slides got me thinking about the fact that DIA could be a really first rate intelligence agency and an effective counter to ODNI and CIA for the SecDef, JCS, and the military services, especially field commanders.

Although badly executed, DIA has two vitally important missions: support to military operations; and support to military strategy formulation. Unfortunately, DIA has always suffered from unimaginative senior leadership and the worst form of military thinking whereby rank trumps truth and an incompetent major trumps a competent lieutenant.

If DIA is going to achieve its potential and rally to provide the best intelligence possible to the SecDef, JCS, and service field commanders it needs to break free from the military hierarchical thinking and its influences on intelligence judgments.

In point of fact DIA has and has always had an excellent group of military and civilian analysts working there although there is a constant churn due to service requirements and limited prospects for civilians.

So what does DIA need? It needs an influx of original (out of the box) strategists who can visualize and articulate the multi-level threats to U.S. National Security, who understand the phenomenon of globalization and its effect on DOD strategic thinking, and can effectively relate such 21st Century phenomenon as trans-national asymmetric warfare to U.S. force and command structures.

Perhaps most importantly, DIA needs to build a capability to exploit the fact that increasing amounts of information relative to DOD concerns that are actually available from open sources. At the same time DIA needs to introduce much more effective information management systems to support its intelligence production.

Phi Beta Iota: This comment is repeated from the QDR OSINT thread. We've been saying this for 21 years. Perhaps we should have shouted. The two DoD OSINT briefings and the future of OSINT material are now circulating among presidential staffs of a handful of other countries. They get it, we don't. How sad is that?

2010/01/102010/01/10

Journal: What Al Qaeda Et Al Can and Cannot Do

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

The Meaning Of Al Qaeda's Double Agent: The jihadists are showing impressive counterintelligence ability that the CIA seems to have underestimated.

Wall Street Journal Reuel Marc Gerecht January 8, 2010 [safety copy of entire piece below the fold]

Amid the Hysteria, A Look at What al-Qaeda Can't Do

TIME Magazine By Peter Beinart Monday, Jan. 18, 2010

Wanted: Dead': With little public debate or notice, the Obama administration has significantly stepped up its targeted assassinations.

National Journal By James Kitfield Saturday, Jan. 9, 2010 [Subscription]

Hidden behind walls of top-secret classification, senior U.S. government officials meet in what is essentially a star chamber to decide which enemies of the state to target for assassination. There is no single master list, but all names pass through an elaborate, multi-agency vetting process that ends at the level of the National Security Council and ultimately requires presidential approval.

Overwhelm. Divide. Spread. Bankrupt. Diversify: Al Qaeda's new grand strategy

Washington Post By Bruce Hoffman January 10, 2010

Human Rights Gagged MI5 Over Abdulmutallab: Intelligence on Muslim radicals cannot be passed to the US because of privacy fears

London Sunday Times By David Leppard and Hala Jaber January 10, 2010

Continue reading “Journal: What Al Qaeda Et Al Can and Cannot Do”

Category: Military

Reference (2010): Fixing Intel–A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan