Analysis – Page 31 – Public Intelligence Blog

2009/12/132009/12/13

Officers Call: A Conversation About Iraq II

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 10 Security, Analysis, Ethics, IO Sense-Making, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

Sir,

There's nothing inherently wrong with the analysis of Al Qaeda (I just glanced at it, if you wish I can read in detail today). The PROBLEM lies not so much in how we analyze support to terrorism (state, crime, other) but rather in the way we analyze (or rather do NOT analyze) EVERYTHING.

Here's what I have thrown together for you, in six pages with links.

Summary of Contents (OC Iraq II)

Why We Missed the Threat
Terrorism is Threat Number Nine Out of Ten
Terrorism is a Tactic, Al Qaeda an Interest Group
Without Legitimacy Forget About Stabilization
Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power
Three Things Secret Intelligence Cannot Do
Advise & Assist Transition to Exit Menu
- Strategic Communications
- Inter-Agency Professionals
- Regional Concordat
- Faith Brigades
- Redirect Funds Toward Waging Peace
- Contain Israel
- Make Nice with China

Officers Call on Iraq I

Semper Fidelis, Robert

2009/12/122009/12/12

Reference: How Little We Know

09 Terrorism, Analysis, Articles & Chapters, Historic Contributions

This contribution by Dr. Laurie Mylroie is so good we are also cataloging it as a Historic Contribution. See her Wikipedia page as well. The article appeared originally in The American Spectator (October 2006). As much as we disagree with many of her beliefs on this matter, we do agree that our national intelligence community was not up to the task of determining the best available truth across the board. Her two books:

2009/12/092009/12/16

Reference: General McCaffrey’s Trip Report on AF

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Military, Peace Intelligence, Policy, Strategy

After Action Report–General Barry McCaffrey, USA (Ret)

Visit to Kuwait and Afghanistan 10-18 Nov 09

11 pages

Extracted points

01 Phenomenally useful report with too much cheerleading. This is a 10-year regional war, State Department and AID are pulling out for next several years (too dangerous), costing us roughly half per day what we paid for all of WW II per day. Allies not really showing up and being effective, less the British.

02 Talked to Generals, Ambassadors, and Ministers–no Captions, no village chiefs. Nothing in her on intelligence, glosses over the C4I and protocol issues (see Journal: Beyond Weber to Epoch B Leadership).

03 Achilles' heels are multiple: 90% of the logistics come through Karachi, Pakistan and then overland. Without fire support and aviation this war is lost. Taliban now up to battalion-sized operations and believe they have high moral ground and time on their side. 100% US movement by air. (See Review: Firepower In Limited War; aviation sounds like a repeat of Viet-Nam; only thing keeping logistics open are the same decision made by NVA in Viet-Nam and by Iran-Syria in Iraq: better to let the Americans bleed themselves to death than cut their main supply line.

Continue reading “Reference: General McCaffrey's Trip Report on AF”

2009/12/032009/12/03

Reference: Measuring Success and Failure in Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism–US Government Metrics of the Global War on Terror (GWOT)

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Academia, Analysis, Articles & Chapters, Government, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence

Alex P. Schmid, one of a handful of trully expert scholars in the field of terrorism and counter-terrorism, and his colleague Rashmi Singh, have created a summary that is devasting on multiple fronts. The “Global War on Terror” or GWOT has lasted longer than World Wars I and II combined; the money expended (the authors do not include the military costs of occupying Afghanistan and Iraq) has been enormous, and in all that time, no one has defined the metrics by which to measure the endeavor. The chapter in included in After the War on Terror: Regional and Multilateral Perspectives on Counter-TerrorismStrategy

See also:

Search: Strategic Analytic Model

Search: QDR “four forces after next”

2009/12/012009/12/01

Journal: ClimateGate Ideology, Theology, Science

03 Environmental Degradation, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Geospatial, Key Players, Methods & Process

Chuck Spinney Sends: Viewed at the level of epistemology, the distinction be the search for truth in science and religion is stark:

In science the structure of the world view — i.e., the brain's interior model of reality — is evolved to match observations taken from the external world, whereas in religion, observations are evolved to match a fixed world view inserted into the brain by some kind of deity.

Miracles (anomalies that defy the model's definition of reality) might be explained by or at least rationalized within an unquestionable dogma of a religious model, whereas such anomalies in science trigger a search for tests that falsify the model. In terms of this typology, the recent scandal involving hacked emails of the UK's Climate Research Center at the University of East Anglia raises a basic question of whether global warming theory is being shaped by a predominantly scientific or religious mindset.

2009/11/30

Journal: Climate battle bill to top $300 billion–Guyana

Analysis, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Key Players, Policies, Threats

Full Story Online

PORT OF SPAIN — The true cost of fighting climate change will top 300 billion dollars and developed countries may balk at footing the bill, Guyana's Prime Minister Bharrat Jagdeo said Saturday.

Leading economists have calculated that “the cost of action and mitigation would be about one percent of the global economy,” he told journalists. “This is one percent of the GDP of a 30-trillion-dollar global economy,” he estimated.

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2009/11/292009/12/03

Search: Strategic Analytic Model

Analysis, Searches

A Strategic Analytic Model is the non-negotiable first step in creating Strategic Intelligence, and cascades downto also enable Operational, Tactical, and Technical Intelligence.

The most relevant strategic analytic model to our purposes is the one inspired by the United Nations High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change. Their report, A More Secure World–Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change provides for the first time ever a prioritized list of the top ten high-level threats to humanity.

That list, in that priority, comprises the vertical aspect of the Strategic Analytic Model.

The following quote from Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), now retired but then the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), is instructive:

I am constantly being asked for a bottom-line defense number. I don't know of any logical way to arrive at such a figure without analyzing the threat; without determining what changes in our strategy should be made in light of the changes in the threat; and then determining what force structure and weapons program we need to carry out this revised strategy.

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