Over at Newsweek, retired Navy Vice Admiral John Scott Redd, head of the National Counterterrorism Center, expresses his concern – bordering on a certainty – that something wicked this way comes:
We’ve got this intelligence threat; we’re pretty certain we know what’s going on. We don’t have all the tactical details about it, [but] in some ways it’s not unlike the U.K. aviation threat last year. So we know there is a threat out there. The question is, what do we do about it? And the response was, we stood up an interagency task force under NCTC leadership. So you have all the players you would expect: FBI, CIA, DHS, DIA, DoD, the operators—the military side comes into that—participating in an integrated plan, but integrated in a much more granular and tactical way than we’ve ever done before. This is my 40th year in government service, 36 in uniform and almost four as a civilian. This is revolutionary stuff, and it is affecting the way we do business.
We used to get these kinds of indicators before 9/11, too. But back then, when the government’s focus was on law enforcement rather than going after terrorists root and branch, we mostly sat around passively, cringing, waiting for the blow to fall. After the dust had settled the LE effort went to work, building a forensic case sufficient to toss the odd cleric in jail after a protracted trial. Every once in a great while, when the all the stars lined up, we’d launch cruise missiles into the desert. Now, instead of merely playing “prevent” defense we’ve got an offensive game to go along with a layered defense.
It was popular for a while to say that “9/11 changed everything,” but that wasn’t enduringly true. Many things have changed since 9/11 however.
Some of them for the better.
That granular tactical integration stuff gives me the creeps. It’s hard enough getting the guys in the same uniform on the same page.
Casca, I’ve served on three of these “granular tactical integration” thingies (can’t say their name out loud or the black helicopters will come get me). Brother, they work. If there’s a force to finish what the granular thingies work out, they work.
However, putting NCTC in charge almost guarantees a giant flopping failure. For the head of NCTC to talk like this was the first he’d ever heard of such a thing, well, it’s scary. Believe you me, NCTC did not invent these, and are usually dragged kicking and screaming into them. Mr Redd, take charge.
“Granular tactical integration” sounds like an unfortunate choice of buzz words, no matter how semantically accurate and meaningful it might be.
“Single guys from strange groups meet to kick ass.”
There, I fixed it. Almost all in words of one syllable.
SGFSGMTKA. Well, the acronym sucks.
Howzabout: Bunch of Geeks Giving Operators Targets (BOGGOT)?
Although if NCTC is leading it, it should be Bunch of Starched Shirts Writing for Each Other–BSS-WFE-O!
Well, hey, I can’t do this all by myself…