Category: Key Players

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Reference: Intelligence-Led Peacekeeping

Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, DoD, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Geospatial, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Policy, Real Time, Reform, Strategy, Threats, United Nations & NGOs
Dorn on UN PKI Haiti FINAL

Professor Walter Dorn is the virtual Dean of peacekeeping intelligence scholarship, going back to the Congo in the 1960's when Swedish SIGINT personnel spoke Swahli fluently and the UN stunned the belligerents with knowledge so-gained.  This is the final published version of the article posted earlier in author's final draft.

The UN is now ready for a serious discussion about a United Nations Open-Source Decision-Support Information Network (UNODIN) but a Member nation must bring it up, as the Secretary General has kindly informed us in correspondence.

In the absence of US interest, we are asking Brazil, China, and India to bring it up.  Should a UNODIN working group be formed, it will certainly include African Union (AU), Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) counterpart groups, as the regional networks will do the heavy lifting and be the super-hubs for the UN (this is in contrast to a US DoD-based system in which military-to-military hubs would be established to do two-way reachback among the eight tribes in the respective nations).  Both concepts are explored in the new book, INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH and in two DoD briefings that are also relevant to the QDR.

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Journal: Comment on DIA Potential

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

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?

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Reference: UN Checklist for Small Arms

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 10 Security, Key Players, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence
UN Small Arms Checklist

UNIDIR (United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research) has produced a superb checklist approach to the mission of reducing the proliferation of small arms, which kill and maim and orphan tens of millions at a time.  The Director of UNIDIR at the time, Dr. Patricia Lewis, was the first UN official in modern times to contemplate the need for a UN-sponosred World Brain.  2003 Lewis (UNIDIR) Creating the Global Brain: The United Nations.

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Worth a Look: Citizen Science

Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Key Players, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Worth A Look

Wikipedia Page

Citizen science is a term used for projects or ongoing program of scientific work in which individual volunteers or networks of volunteers, many of whom may have no specific scientific training, perform or manage research-related tasks such as observation, measurement or computation.

The use of citizen-science networks often allows scientists to accomplish research objectives more feasibly than would otherwise be possible. In addition, these projects aim to promote public engagement with the research, as well as with science in general. Some programs provide materials specifically for use by primary or secondary school students. As such, citizen science is one approach to informal science education.

Phi Beta Iota: Citizen Science is in its infancy, but with the emergence of open source software and open source intelligence combinations such as represented by SourceMap.org, Citizen Intelligence and Citizen Counterintelligence are sure to be coming along soon….and if combined with multi-lingual networks such as provided by Telelanguage, a global multinational citizen information-sharing and sense-making grid can be created that implements the Swedish vision of M4IS2: Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making.  This has enormous implications for both real-time science and real-time warning as well as real-time Emergency Action.

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Journal: What Al Qaeda Et Al Can and Cannot Do

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

[gerecht]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

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Journal: CIA as Poster Child For Dull US Intelligence

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Peace Intelligence

Terrorism Fight Requires Intelligence Accountability (Senator John Kerry)

Frankly, we don’t need more commissions or bureaucracies. We do need intelligence professionals and their managers who are committed to a new culture of quality, cooperation, and accountability.

Two attacks highlight counterterrorism's bureaucratic bog (David Ignatius)

Talking to veteran counterterrorism officers, I hear a common theme that unites these two disastrous lapses: The CIA has adopted bureaucratic procedures that, while intended to avoid mistakes, may actually heighten the risks. In the words of one CIA veteran, “You have a system that is overwhelmed.”

But those standard agent-handling rules have been violated routinely, in Iraq and now Afghanistan, because senior officials have concluded it's too dangerous outside the wire. “At least 90 percent of all agent meetings are conducted on bases,” estimates one CIA veteran. The agency wants to protect its people, understandably — but the system actually works to increase vulnerability.

The Khost tragedy shows that the CIA needs to take the counterintelligence threat from al-Qaeda more seriously. Intelligence reports over the past year have warned that groups linked with al-Qaeda were sending double agents to penetrate CIA bases in Afghanistan.

The brave CIA officers serving overseas deserve a better system than this.

CIA Director Leon Panetta should use these searing events to foster a culture of initiative and accountability at a CIA that wants to do the job — but that needs leadership and reform.

Holes For The CIA To Close (David Ignatius)

A replay of long-standing criticisms of CIA's short-tours, lack of memory, refusal to take counterintelligence seriously, and general ineptitude outside the Embassy cocktail circuits.

Confusion Grows Over How Bomber Infiltrated CIA Base (Los Angeles Times)

A CIA inquiry is focused on two main questions: why the bomber was not more thoroughly screened and where he received the training and explosives used in the attack.

Deja Vu Stories

U.S. Saw A Path To Qaeda Chiefs Before Bombing

Suicide bomber who attacked CIA post in Afghanistan was trusted informant from Jordan

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Journal: CIA’s Poor Tradecraft AND Poor Management

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Methods & Process

Full Story Online

The CIA is proud to be on the front lines against al-Qaeda

By Leon Panetta

Sunday, January 10, 2010; A13

. . . . . . .

We have found no consolation, however, in public commentary suggesting that those who gave their lives somehow brought it upon themselves because of “poor tradecraft.” That's like saying Marines who die in a firefight brought it upon themselves because they have poor war-fighting skills.

. . . . . . .

From: Robert Steele, KR-594

To: Leon Panetta

Subj: Getting in touch with reality

As someone who scored in the top ten of their 65 person clandestine Ops I and Ops II training, and then went on to achieve five times the regional recruiting average across three tours focused on terrorists and extremists, ultimately serving in three of the four Directorates and being selected for the CIA Mid-Career Course; and as someone who has actually served in the US Marine Corps and in zones of conflict, I beg to differ with your Washington Post Op-Ed.

A number of us have tried to help you, from the day we intuited your selection, a selection I applauded because of your unique background as both a Chief of Staff in the White House (knowing what the President needed to know) and as a Director of the Office of Management and Budget (understanding means in relation to ways and ends).

The death of so many CIA personnel was a failure of tradecraft at multiple levels and also, I am sorry to have to point out, a failure of management. Were you to demand an honest report of the skills and experience of all those associated with this incident, you would learn two things:

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