Back in 2002 while I was at a major Command, Friedman made a pitch to provide “ground truth” intelligence on contract. While some folks went gaga over his presentation, there were many small indicators that all was not well. Apparently Friedman was asked to leave LSU for reasons undetermined. Offically, according to STRATFOR ” In 1997, a small company that would eventually grow into Stratfor—called Strategic Intelligence LLC—left Baton Rouge and LSU, where its founder George Friedman had been a professor. A 1999 profile in Texas Monthly said the company “couldn't thrive” in Baton Rouge, and that's why Friedman took it to Austin, where it blossomed into a global powerhouse.”
Reasoning heard on the street by colleagues active in San Antonio, he was bankrolled by Mossad and they wanted him in an area of hightech.
I have read his comments about OSS and you specifically; his arrogance is unbelievable. His “analysts” are currently UT-Austin students with a couple of “seasoned veterans”, none of whom have an intelligence
background.
He has been described as a neocon and I think that fits. From where I sit, I think STRATFOR is finished, they are trying very hard to regain their client base….with little success…
Recently, the New York Times (4 February 2012) published a story, “U.S. Plans Shift to Elite Units as It Winds Down in Afghanistan”, and the Washington Post (5 February 2012) followed with “U.S. to elevate Special Operations forces’ role in Afghanistan.”
From the Washington Post version, I noted the following salient points.
“The U.S. military is planning to elevate the role of Special Operations forces in Afghanistan as it shifts away from a combat focus to a mission that places greater emphasis on advising Afghan forces and raids to kill top insurgent leaders, senior U.S. officials said.”
“As American troop levels drop, U.S. commanders will by necessity have to rely more heavily on Afghan units to operate with minimal support from big, conventional Army and Marine units.”
“The new focus could rely on American Special Forces soldiers to fill out some of the advisory teams in the most violent areas of Afghanistan. The Special Forces troops would continue to advise and mentor elite Afghan units and the Afghan local police, a program in which villages form units to defend themselves. The primary mission of the Army’s Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets, is to mentor, train and fight alongside indigenous forces. The Special Forces teams also have the ability to marshal firepower from American warplanes for Afghan forces.”
Meanwhile, in an Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post on 9 February 2012, George F. Will wrote “the drone war is being waged more vigorously than ever….”.
The evolutionary development that is most impressive is evolving from using the firepower of American piloted warplanes to the use of unmanned drones mentioned by George Will.
In my book, “Cash on Delivery: CIA Special Operations During the Secret War in Laos” (www.rosebankpress.com), I wrote, “At the beginning of the “Global War on Terrorism”, which began in September 2001, the American military’s subsequent actions in Afghanistan brought new publicity to the use of special operations in denied areas. The use of small teams consisting of Rangers, Seals, Delta Force or others of this type of specially trained soldier in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy’s advanced smart bomb technology may turn out to be an advancement in warfare equivalent to the long bow, gunpowder, the machine gun, the tank or the airplane. The combination of global positioning systems, laser guidance, detailed maps, radar, J-Stars, and moving target indicators make the delivery of bombs by the United States Air Force and the United States Navy the most deadly and accurate ever.”
This early 2000s use of special operations forces and advanced technology for bomb delivery were precursors to the “drone war” we see today. The earlier advanced technology, mentioned above, was improved and eventually augmented by the drone for the delivery of missiles and even the missiles have evolved into more accurate and deadly munitions.
It is a simple calculus on the surface. Intelligence is collected by using technology, i.e., aerial surveillance, intercepts, etc, or by using human sources, i.e., informants, prisoners, and/or captured documents and equipment. The intelligence is analyzed and targets are developed. Action is taken in the form of drone attack or perhaps ground attack. If ground attacks are made, more intelligence may be gained from prisoners, captured documents or captured equipment, such as computers or cell phones.
Ground attacks might be made by all-American units, hybrid American-Afghan units or by all-Afghan units. In special operations in other countries, merely substitute the local participant from the country in which the special operations are taking place.
The special operations formula might be expressed this way, intelligence (technical and/or humint) + action (technical and/or human) = terrorist elimination. There is nothing new in this formula. What is new is the technology that can be used for intelligence collection or for action, i.e., drones.
Stephen Aftergood wrote in “Secrecy News”, 21 February 2012, “USSOCOM [U.S. Special Operations Command] and the CIA currently coordinate, share, exchange liaison officers and operate side by side in the conduct of DOD overt and clandestine operations and CIA’s covert operations, said Michael D. Lumpkin, acting assistant secretary of defense.”
“Our activities are mutually supportive based on each organization’s strengths and weaknesses and overall capabilities. Whichever organization has primary authority to conduct the operation leads; whichever organization has the superior planning and expertise plans it; both organizations share information about intelligence, plans, and ongoing operations fully and completely. Whether one or both organizations participate in the execution depends on the scope of the plan and the effect that needs to be achieved. Currently all USSOCOM and CIA operations are coordinated and deconflicted at all levels.”
The Osama bin Laden raid is a successful application of the special operations formula, with emphasis on all-American air and ground units.
The technical intelligence collection part of the formula can continue to be all-American for quite a while, but what we need to see, as soon as possible, is all-Afghan human intelligence collection and all-Afghan ground action units. Actually, I hope we never hear the details. Call me old school, but I prefer that the details remain secret. However, I would really love to believe that one day the special operations formula will be Afghan intelligence collection + Afghan action = terrorist elimination. We should all hope that all-Afghan special operations will result in the capture of terrorists and the seizure of equipment leading to significant new intelligence, thus contributing to a continuing cycle of intelligence + action = terrorist elimination.
Since evocations of the Vietnam War seem to rile so many, one hopes there is never an inclination to call it “Afghanization”.
The goal of worldwide special operations must be evolution from al-American to hybrid indigenous-American to (finally) all-indigenous action units with, at most, American participation as program managers who never participate “on the ground” but only in advising and providing support.
In the brief introduction to a review of the book, Very Special Intelligence, Dolphin noted that the successful tactical doctrine of using combined intelligence and combat troops in tightly organized teams was being seriously diluted by the U.S. IC (read CIA, DIA, NGA and NSA) who were moving to fold the intelligence elements involved into the bureaucratic mainstream and to automate the intelligence processes involved.
As I noted in an earlier article (The Triumph of Tactical Intelligence) U.S. Forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations (COIN) in both Iraq and Afghanistan have developed an innovative tactical concept, which Dolphin noted was based on research and development work done at the U. S. Naval Post Graduate School by a team under General Dell Daily. The essence of this concept is the High-value Target Teams (HTT) which integrates special operations forces fighters with military and civilian intelligence analysts into tightly organized teams in which immediate tactical intelligence is essential to identifying so called high value targets (usually individuals) and guiding war-fighters to their locations. This apparently was not a case of intelligence support being provided by folks sitting far from the action phoning in information, but of intelligence support being very much part of the operation itself with the war fighters. At a recent hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Special Operations Forces, Michael D. Lumpkin, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense said, “USSOCOM [U.S. Special Operations Command] and the CIA currently coordinate, share, exchange liaison officers and operate side by side in the conduct of DOD overt and clandestine operations and CIA’s covert operations.”
Lord James of Blackheath, House of Lords [VIDEO 11:10] from 2010, now circulating
Breaking news Lord James of Blackheath has spoken in the House of Lords holding evidence of three transactions of 5 Trillion each and a transaction of 750,000 metric tonnes of gold and has called for an investigation.
I think there are three possible conclusions that may come from it. I think there may have been a massive piece of money laundering committed by a major government which ought to know better and that it has effectively undermined the integrity of the British bank the Royal Bank of Scotland, in doing so. The second alternative is that a major American department has an agency that has gone rogue on it because it has been wound up and has created a structure out of which they are seeking to get at least 50 billion Euros as a payoff. And the third possibility is that this is an extraordinarily elaborate fraud which has not been carried out but which has been prepared in order to provide a threat to one government or more if they don't pay them off. So there are three possibilities and this all needs a very urgent review.
My Lords, it starts in April and May of 2009, with the alleged transfer to the United Kingdom, to HSBC of a sum of 5 trillion dollars and seven days later, in comes another 5 trillion dollars to HSBC, and then 3 weeks later another 5 trillion. 5 trillion in each case. Sorry. A total of 15 trillion dollars is alleged to have been passed into the hands of HSBC for onward transit to the Royal Bank of Scotland and we need to look at where this came from and what the history of this money is. And I have been trying to sort out the sequence by which this money has been created and from where it has come from for a long time.
The Andrew J. Bacevich article, “Slouching Toward Persistent War” (NYT 19 Feb 2012) points among other things to the rise of Special Operations Forces (SOF) as the instrument of choice to carry out clandestine warfare against individual and groups designated enemies of the U.S. (or close U.S. allies i.e. Israel). It also cited the rise of Michael Vickers to be Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence as further evidence of the growing importance of SOF.
Vickers is a ten year veteran of the U.S. Army Special Forces and then served three years at CIA as principal logistic manager for support going to the anti-Soviet Taliban resistance fighters in Afghanistan. These experiences along with a PhD apparently were felt to qualify Vickers to head up DOD intelligence.
What Bacevich failed to take note of was a new and successful tactical concept that was developed by the U.S. Forces, mainly Army and Marine infantry, in the course of the counter insurgency (COIN) operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This concept has been the subject of a careful study by two researchers at the Institute of National Strategic Studies of the DOD’s Defense University: Dr. Christopher Lamb and Mr. Evan Munsing produced a study titled, “Strategic Perspectives entitled “Secret Weapon: High-value Target Teams as an Organizational Innovation.” In the study they examined the repeated successes of the High-value Target Teams in eliminating al Qaeda and insurgent Taliban leaders. The secret according to the two authors was the combination of special operations forces fighters with military and civilian intelligence analysts into tightly net teams in which immediate tactical intelligence was essential to guiding the fighters to their targets. This apparently was not a case of intelligence support being provided by folks sitting far from the action phoning in information, but of intelligence support being very much part of the operation itself with the war fighters. CIA has increasingly become part of this new concept and the move of General David Petraeus to be Director of CIA may reflect this involvement of the agency with real time support to military operations.
Of course this also means that the probability is that CIA will continue to ignore strategic intelligence or what Robert Steele describes as Whole of Government Decision-Support and also multinational information-sharing and sense-making. In other words, CIA has become MIA (pun intended).
I have begun drafting my portion of the new Handbook of Intelligence Studies (Routledge, 2013), it is a chapter early on entitled “The Craft of Intelligence.” I pick up where Allen Dulles and Sherman Kent left off. My graphic on Intelligence Maturity captures the essence of my thinking at the strategic level, but of course there is more to come, including the desperate need to restore integrity to all that we do.
In 1988 I ghost-wrote for the Commandant of the Marine Corps an article that he enhanced and signed, “Global Intelligence Challenges in the 1990's.” At that time my focus was on the difference between the conventional threat and the emerging unconventional threat.
Now my focus is on the purpose and process of intelligence as decision-support. We must — we will — move from secret intelligence for the few to open intelligence for the many; from expensive centralized largely worthless intelligence to free and low-cost distributed intelligence relevant to every person at every level on every issue; from intelligence as window-dressing for channeling $80 billion a year to banks and corporations, to intelligence as an integral element of every aspect of a Smart Nation.
Today Owl sent me a link to an article, Philip E. Tetlock and Barabara A Mellers, “Intelligent Management of Intelligence Agencies,” American Psychologist, 2011, pp. 1-12. I respect Owl, so I printed it and read it twice.
This article is completely out of touch with reality and the authors have not bothered to familiarize themselves with the literatures pertinent to their endeavor. Out of 89 cited sources 12 are non-intelligence-related prior publications of the lead author, 1 is a prior publication of the second author, and 11 are ostensibly about intelligence but truly marginal selections. So 12% sources on the subject, 13% self-citation, and 75% escoteric psycho-babble irrelevant to the actual challenge. As an intelligence professional, I am offended that two ostensibly erudite individuals would dare to publish this trype without even a semblance of understanding of the subject under discussion.
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Baluchistan Hearing, February 8, 2012
Testimony of Ralph Peters, military analyst and author
Introductory remarks: This testimony arises from three premises.
First, we cannot analyze global events through reassuring ideological lenses, be they left or right, or we will continue to be mistaken, surprised and bewildered by foreign developments. The rest of the world will neither conform to our prejudices nor behave for our convenience.
Second, focusing obsessively on short-term problems blinds us to the root causes and frequent intractability of today’s conflicts. Because we do not know history, we wave history away. Yet, the only way to understand the new world disorder is to place current developments in the context of generations and even centuries. Otherwise, we will continue to blunder through situations in which we deploy to Afghanistan to end Taliban rule, only to find ourselves, a decade later, impatient to negotiate the Taliban’s return to power.
Third, we must not be afraid to “color outside of the lines.” When it comes to foreign affairs, Washington’s political spectrum is monochromatic: timid, conformist and wrong with breathtaking consistency. We have a Department of State that refuses to think beyond borders codified at Versailles nine decades ago; a Department of Defense that, faced with messianic and ethnic insurgencies, concocted its doctrine from irrelevant case studies of yesteryear’s Marxist guerrillas; and a think-tank community almost Stalinist in its rigid allegiance to twentieth-century models of how the world should work.
If we do not think innovatively, we will continue to fail ignobly.
Responding to Richard Wright: USMC “Learns” From StratFor – Integrity? – We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Integrity
