Reflections on the Protection of Civilians – US Army List with Corrected Responsibilities 1.1

The U.S. Army continues to be one of the most thoughtful of the services.  Below is a superb list of responsibilities associated with the protection of civilians.  Where the list goes wrong is in assuming that the military will have a major responsibility across all these elements.  In fact US thinking continues to be severely …

Berto Jongman: McKinsey 12 Technologies Driving the Future — With Comment from Robert Steele

These 12 technologies will drive our economic future Neil Irwin Washington Post, 24 May 2013 As the chart shows, the McKinsey folks believe that the most economically significant technologies over the next decade-plus will be those already well underway in their development — the mobile Internet, largely in place in the adv Indeed, maybe the …

Search (3): Analytic Models, 10 Threats, Threat Support to Acquisition

Ada Bozeman, in Strategic Intelligence and Statecraft: Selected Essays, has written: (There is a need) to recognize that just as the essence of knowledge is not as split up into academic disciplines as it is in our academic universe, so can intelligence not be set apart from statecraft and society, or subdivided into elements…such as …

Steven Aftergood: Senate Slams Door on Defense Clandestine Service — Robert Steele Comments + DoD Clandestine RECAP

Updated 11 Dec 2012 to add Graphic: Intelligence Requirements, Collection, Evaluation, and Capabilities Building Senate Puts Brakes on Defense Clandestine Service The Senate moved last week to restrain the rapid growth of the Defense Clandestine Service, the Pentagon’s human intelligence operation. Under a provision of the FY2013 defense authorization act that was approved on December …

Practical Reflections on United Nations Intelligence + UN RECAP

Updated 21 Dec 2012 1800 Short Persistent URL for This Post: http://tinyurl.com/UN-21-Intel DOCUMENT:  2012 Reflections on UN Intelligence 2.3 21 Dec 2012 I had occasion to look at the Report of the Secretary General on the Work of the Organization, and thought this would be a good time to integrate some of what I have …

Search: • most but not all of the information needed for strategic reflections comes from open source intelligence.

This also applies at the operational, tactical, and technical levels; generally the 80-20 rules applies–80% open, 20% closed.  It merits comment that no one is actually producing Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) as a holistic persistent element of decision-making, nor is most secret “intelligence” actually intelligence –it is just classified information. To qualify as OSINT one …