Something of an oxymoron, according to one frustrated commander in a report carried by the Center for a New American Security:
U.S. military intelligence officers in Afghanistan spend too much time focusing on enemy groups and tactics and not enough on trying to understand Afghanistan’s culture, people and networks, Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn wrote in a report published Monday.
American military intelligence gathering is “ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and levels of cooperation among villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers,” Flynn wrote.
Intel drives operations, according to Marine Corps doctrine. And it must be frustrating being on scene without a complete appreciation of the nuances and textures of the Afghan quilt.
Still, it’s a little unusual for a two-star to complain about his children to a Washington, DC think tank.
Well, the Army started the Human Terrain program, working with anthropologists to get a better handle on these types of things, and the anthro community in academia went bezerk. They disavowed any anthropologist who would deign to spend time with the service and try to improve our operations there.
Maybe the intel people think it’s their job to understand the enemy – and Civil Affairs job to understand our putative friends?
I thought the report was pretty good and insightfull. bottom line is all about information flow and what to do with it. With limited assets and ever expanding requirements, intel across the board is definitely a high demand low density type asset. But, it can be better.
I thought that one of the best parts was where Gen Flynn mentioned firing S2s (Intel officers). I wish this was more prevalent. On a number of instances I’ve seen Commanders accept substandard Intel support. Saw this in squadrons, where the CO had a complete buffoon, incompetent moron for a squadron AI, yet did not do anything about it. They just went to other AIs while on deployment, but their squadron suffered tremendously, especially at home plate. The fault also would rest with Intel superiors. For whatever reason, they accepted below par intel officers and had others pick up the slack, vs contacting the detailers, the Intel guys and saying WTFO?
Some in the intel community tried to aleviate this by setting up extra instruction for Intel guys coming in the respective community. We did this for P-3s for a while where all incoming AIs would go to VP-30 for a month where 2 AIs assigned to the WTU designed a curriculum for them to get them up to speed with the airframe, community, missions, and get them to spend time with an established squadron AI. Since I kinda liked SERE, if I could find the time and money I’d send them to SERE. Not sure if it’s still happening, but we should have never had to do that in the first place.
In any case, getting off my soapbox, CDRs and specifically operators in general need to get better educated about what intel can and SHOULD provide them and if they don’t get it, scream and fire some people. Lives depend on it.
Claudio raises some good points. From what I’ve seen, the intel community has some serious shortages of competent personnel.
I suspect that part of the problem is the lack of glamour. Flying jets is sexy. Shooting terrorists is macho. Crunching intelligence data…well, it’s NOT a James Bond movie.
One wonders if the job could be farmed out to older people, maybe even civilians. Data are fungible.
Mike, along those lines I’ve been thinking that perhaps ret. Police & Sheriff intel types who have long “street-smarts” experience people-wise wouldn’t be a good bet. A lot would probably jump at the chance and make damn fine assets.
When I was in we in the USAF had huge numbers of historians, political sci, socio & anthro majors
with their MA and/or PhD who were only in because of the draft and basically hated every second of it and put out minimum effort, which was a shame as some were really sharp IQ-wise. Some even liked it and stayed, but it was a crap-shoot. At that time everything–intel, maint, avionics, was concentrated at Wing level so most were totally divorced from the reality of operational life–tried to fit ops to their routines, rather than the reverse. Was especially true outside SEA in both CONUS and USAFE at that time period. Of course AI vastly diff from Mi for JOs. Most Army & Marine MI JOs I knew in Vietnam seemed totally integrated with ops in field and clued in–certainly compared to AF types. I’m really surprised about the problems in Af. outlined in this art.
VX.
Expect Heavy Flak, SAMS and Migs. Weather will be Broken at 3000′ winds 270 @ 10k. Wish I was going with you guys, That is all!
Sound familiar? Pretty much the exact Intel brief I got for every mission I flew.
You got that right juvat, along with the same pic of the same truck we killed along the same trail six months ago…LOL. Would be funny if not so pathetic. (Although seems like “imagery” in all it’s forms in the digital world and it’s rapid dissemination to end user is the one thing that really HAS improved from my day tho.) To my mind the really uniformly quality people were the intel enlisted ranks in the USAF–all pretty much really sharp troops, true professionals, really, who loved doing their job and were highly dedicated–an unappreciated asset, really. And most seemed to be career-minded types down to even the newest ones, as all seemed to be highly motivated and, while often frustrated, remained, while cynical about the military as anyone else who experiences it gets, refreshingly UNcynical (is there such a word?) about the basic overall msn–unlike a lot of the officers. (have no idea what actual stats on retention show, could be wrong)
Can’t say that the general’s opinion surprises me. That’s not what we train the intel community to do. Just like you have to train a grunt to talk nice to the village elder, drink tea, and accept guarded responses, so too do you have to train your intel bubbas to look for something other than heat signatures and radar returns.
Of course, Flynn’s requirements sounds like we need to deploy the intel bubbas within the US to PTA meetings, school boards, town halls, and the knives’ club so they can appreciate nuance, low level politics, and backstabbing.
Now that second paragraph would be funny, if it weren’t true. Think how many Purple Hearts we’d have to give out
Yeah, for the really, truly DANGEROUS duty…like being a hall guard in a middle school across the street from the projects…funny but oh so TRUE! LOL.
VQ Bubba, I agree that what he’s looking for is not what the intel guys are trained for or looking for. Most of the time, we’re looking for foreheads to plant warheads. But the information is there at the lower level.
The issue as the general sees it is that the info exists at the lowest tactical level, however it doesn’t make its way into upper echelons where it can be collected, evaluated and disseminated in a manner where it has value added to decision makers. And it is significant in that environment. The S2 grunts at the lower levels don’t have the time or incentive to send this up the chain. they are concerned, as they should be, with killing the bad guys and protecting the good guys. thats what their taskers and main concerns should be. What he wants to do is get others in there to get this info, feed it up the chain and get a better picture. His take is that for effective COIN this information is needed.
Were this to come from anyone else other than the AF J2, I’d give this initiative a PsubF (posibility of coming to fruition) of .02. In this instance though, i’m thinking somewhere north of .08, especially with all the emphasis and surge. The bodies will have to come from somewhere though and not sure DIA can support all those billets. Karnak sees more 1630/IS IAs.
Mike M, I don’t think the case is one of “serious shortages” of competent personnel. At all. A lot of good, smart guys and gals are doing great work, often unrewarded, where your hundred good deeds are wiped out by one mistake/miss. Have to be right 100% and the bad guys only once. As with any other community, there are dirtbags. There are dirtbags in aviation, maintenance, shoe comunities, everywhere. Except that in most others, they are mostly weeded out early. In intel, not so much, dependent on who you work for.
Some new initiatives with a solid PQS and quals will help. Don’t get me started on the Intel Pin, I do think that was a case of penis pin envy, plus, it looks kinda ghey. Never needed a pin to advertise who I was and what I did. Those that I cared about knew it.
As far as the glamour you alude to, its there just well hidden and not everyone gets it. Most intel guys don’t worry about that too much. Ones that do are the highschool and college kids wannabes before they find out what we really do. I like what we do, supporting operators. If I wanted to be one, then I would have done that.
And no, the job can’t be turned over to older civilians. Thats why we’re called military intelligence. Civilian guys are at DIA, CIA and a number of other 3 letter agencies. They can have them.
Nothing new under the sun. I was lucky to fly in a squadron whose entire mission was Intell collection, analysis and dissemination. Our Intelligence shop was utterly first rate. Later on, in squadrons where many of us with that sort of background wound up, we had to teach the new AI’s their own jobs. After that I saw good, bad, empire builders and some of the best ability to utterly disappear from view I’d ever seen. While in a billet where I needed some real intelligence estimates, the response from the O-6 who ran the shop when I asked some very specific questions I needed to do that job, was that I’d get the info only when, in his opinion and his alone, we really, really needed it. E.g., about the time the hostiles were going to be inbound. Closest I came to physical assault on a superior I’d had in many years.
I really it goes to the heart of the culture. Knowledge is power and if they alone have the knowledge, then they have power and are therefore valuable to the system. Unfortunately I think that this sometimes leads to an obsession with data and the collection thereof, as opposed to the analysis of that data and dissemination of the knowledge distilled from that data.
I’m just a military wife. But I thought the actual report, which can be found here: http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/AfghanIntel_Flynn_Jan2010_code507_voices.pdf
Was insightful. Isn’t “knowing your enemy” basic Sun Tzu material?
Per Liz’s source – Michael Flynn: “Merely killing insurgents usually serves to multiply enemies rather than subtract them. T or F, gentlefolk?
There isn’t much of worth that can be garnered by disregarding 25 pages and picking out one sentence (out of context) as an example.
Sure, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche had a couple of accurate, and rather succinct and witty one-liners…did that make them correct? Nor would one sentence indicate Flynn is incorrect overall in his assessment.
False – but the kinetic effects can’t be applied in isolation…there has to be a good IO plan running alongside…and and sources of support to the insurgents need to be neutralised as well…the Russians, Chinese and a number of African nations have fairly good track records for force-focussed COIN where the will power exists to see it through…
BK, I have to say, with some authority, that statistically there is a very low recidivism rate with dead tangos.
Darn, had a whole long response vanish. Take two, shorter version.
VQ Bubba. Main concern of most intel guys is warheads on foreheads and protecting our guys. Not in that order. Most of the info MG Flynn is looking for exists. Just not enough time/assets to process all of it due to priorities. He’ll get more bodies and it can be done. I think these measures will be implemented.
Mike M. Wholeheartedly disagree. Majority of Intel guys and gals are great. All comunities, aviation to seals to maintenance to supply have dirtbags and incompetent morons. Most get weeded out soon, some not so soon. Intel PQS should help. Intel/Info Dominance new Pin not so much, IMHO a little case of penis I mean Pin envy.
Lex, MG Flynn did not go to CNAS on his own on this. I work at a think tank and what likely happened is that he had a whole bunch of data/information, ideas and got CNAS to help put it together and then publish it. And there is no way he did this on his own without some top cover, at least McChrystal.
A good grasp of the specific operating environment is a requirement for anyone in or supporting the theatre, not just the intel crews…Iraq is not Afghanistan is not East Timor is not Sierra Leone – it’s way more complex than the good old days of the Cold War and the Fulda Gap (those who remain enamoured of small maps, big arrows, and linear plans being known as Gapists) and I just wonder if intel training and doctrine has actually caught up? The reason I ask, is that this is not the first time this particular gripe has come up, and I also wonder if we are making sure that we have the right people filling the intel slots i.e. intel is not being used as a drop off area for those who have issues elsewhere?
This whole thing of cultural awareness is not new and it should be as embedded in mission prep training as tactics and blowing stuff up…I went home for Christmas and my Mum had boxed up a bunch of my old books to take home with us. I was sorting through them with my brother-in-law and he pulled out what I had always thought (for decades) was just an old social studies text book on Libya and Tunisia – until he had a look at the inside cover and found that it had been produced by 2 NZEF before they helped kick Rommel out of North Africa. Apparently the production and distribution of such publications within the div was SOP back then – EVEN IN A CONVENTIONAL CONFLICT…so have we lost something along the way in the succeeding 65 years…? I know that both the US Army and Marines have produced theatre-specific cultural awareness publications for Iraq and Afghanistan but it seems from Flynn paper the general awareness of the theatre still isn’t there.
When we reviewed COIN doctrine a couple of years back, one of the insights that leapt out of the findings was that the COE required fusion of far more disparate information from a far broader and disparate range of sources than ever contemplated for conventional high intensity conflict e.g. the Fulda Gap. Unfortunately, under the current structures, the responsibility (and blame) still comes down upon the 2 community for information planning, fusion, interpretation and dissemination and maybe this is what we have to change…? Maybe we all need to get into the 2 game a little more…?
Neill-
Call it Timor Leste if you want a smile from the locals
Speaking of old books and cultural awareness one of the odder (and smaller) titles on my bookshelf is ‘INSTRUCTIONS FOR AMERICAN SERVICEMEN IN AUSTRALIA 1942′.
Some of it is amusing, some of it actually shows someone had a decent bit of insight.
In addition to the “INSTRUCTIONS FOR AMERICAN SERVICEMEN IN AUSTRALIA 1942,” there are editions that cover Britain, France, and Iraq. They’ve been recently republished by the University of Chicago Press, and the Iraq edition has a foreward by Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl (Ret.), now CNAS president, interestingly.
Link – http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=251757
You know, we’re quite an odd bunch of blokes (and ladies) Lex has collected
I prefer the term “intriguing”.
Finally found the time to read the good MG’s work. I find it amazing that he could roll over on his own like that. I have the “pleasure” to work with a number of ex Army MI and AF Intel folks (with a few Navy 1630s thrown in for good measure). I find them almsot universally (the exceptions stand out) myopic, self-absorbed, vision lacking, and non-curious. The ex-Army MI guys (all retired O6s and above) are the embodiment of the description of the most common Army officer MBTI — “they prefer structure and standardization, doing things by the book and maintaining tight control.”
MG Flynn needs to change the culture at the MI senior level that drives out the the very people he thinks will get this done.
Having worked for then COL Flynn on a “revolutionary” task force supporting LTG McCrystal in a different AOR, I find this, well, more of the same. It’s all good and well to say that all this tactical minutiae needs to find its synthesized way into the hands of senior leadership–but who, really? The first problem with the use of Intel personnel is that so much effort is burned pushing information up to people who want information but are incapable of making decisions or publishing clear guidance–they eat time and manpower, but what is there to show for the Sisyphean labors?
Consider another example. Development officials
earn goodwill through small-scale but quick irrigation projects in one district, while officials in a neighboring district see little public enthusiasm as they proceed with an expensive but slowly developing road construction project. Policymakers in Europe and the United States need the “nitty-gritty” details of these projects to detect the reasons for their different outcomes and to assess whether similar patterns exist with projects elsewhere in the province. In short, strategy is about making difficult choices with limited people, money and time. The information necessary to guide major policy choices, for better or for worse, resides at the grassroots level.
By contrast, the British ran an empire and conquered the subcontinent by keeping the nitty gritty far overseas and empowering their on-scene officers and officials to handle whatever arose.
Interestingly, in the entire piece I see no effort to understand Islam itself, its documents and doctrines, and how they affect the way the populace understands itself, and how it understands us. Let’s collect voting statistics and other minutiae, because understanding how these people actually think and the ideology that forms their mind is too frightening to contemplate.
And Claudio, have you seen the new PQS? It’s a POS, suitable for technicians, but not for developing analysts. Glad I missed it, but it looks like I’ll get stuck with the pin anyway.
Zane/
What made the British “Station/District Agent” scheme work so well was that those people were the flower of the British educational system (think Harvard/Yale/Berkley/Princeton & MIT grads in the days when one could actually become truly educated at those institutions until the late 60s.) who also believed in the superiority of their culture and thus totally dedicated to their msn, and were given wide powers as twenty somethings usually found only at the O-6 level today. They were also smart enough to rule thru existing local power structures. They didn’t “de-stool the Chiefs” in Africa, for example–unlike the French and Belgiques. When one British diplomat was once complimented on how well Britain “ran” Egypt, the diplomat replied: “Oh, we don’t ‘run’ anything, but we do control those who do.” And people at the level of a Viceroy of India?–well my God–even MacArthur in Japan, the closest thing WE’VE ever had to an “American Caesar” didn’t have the power that a modern Viceroy of India like Mountbatten or Wavell had, let alone a giant like Curzon in the days when communications were such that the Governer-General of India had almost unlimited powers of discretion.
Sorry for the bold paragraph, I thought I was making it block quote.
[...] Neptunus Lex has comment on the recent paper by Major General Michael T. Flynn, the Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence (CJ2), for ISAF since June 2009, entitled Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan. My comments on Lex are below: [...]
The issue with cultural knowledge brought up is that it is essential to winning the battle. On one hand, it should be part of the predeployment preparations for all deployers. Basic IPB. The good general wants more local knowledge pushed up and then analyzed and “populated”. Well, the number one priority of the lower level S2 guys is to take care of their units. I know if I was one of the lower guys, doing all this “collateral collection” would be far behind doing what my guys need.
I do feel a little conflicted about the report. On one hand, the info and the format he is asking for is good info to have. essential in winning the “big war”. on the other hand, the current J2 system from him down to the lowest corporal is not designed, equiped or really tasked with that. I also don’t quite agree with the venue chosen for publishing this info. Maybe he and his sea daddy (or is it “field daddy” in army vernacular?) were concerned that if this report came out in a classified format, it would be burried by the intel organization. However, coming out the way it did, when it did may do more harm than good. Pentagon spokeman today called the publishing by CNAS an aberation, said the Pentagon was surprized and probably would not happen again. NOT GOOD if Gates did not know about this ahead of time. this is the kind of stuff none of my bosses EVER wanted to read about on CNN or the Washington Post.
Zane, I did not see the latest and greatest but saw the various iterations starting about 5 years ago. Like all other PQSs, designed to be gone through one at a time, get a signature then do a datadump. In no way does it help in building an analyst, but then again we do that by OJT anyways don’t we?
Claudio,
Flynn and McChrystal go way back together, no doubt the boss knew this was coming. Flynn is one of the most hard-working and inquisitive 2s you will ever come across, not suprising given McChrystal’s character. At the same time he is the beast, as in “feed the beast,” and God bless those JOs who nod and say “Yes, sir” to him because in short order they will find themselves spending 20 hours a day researching his thought projects and have no time left to get Intel to anyone else–the JOs need to remember that they’re working for the CG, and the J2 is just the intermediary, and they’ve got to stay focused on the CG’s mission objectives. I say this neither to demean nor praise, only to add some background that might better illuminate Flynn’s purpose in publishing this. One of the aspects of this article that I’ve been pondering has been the mentioning, what, three times? of McChrystal’s stating as a requirement that lowest level tactical information gathering has to get to policy makers in DC and Europe, instead of press reporting. That is, it’s as if the heart of Flynn’s effort is IPB–not of Afghanistan, but of DC and London, and this information is intended to shape that campaign, not the campaign on the ground in AF. As outlined, his plan may vastly improve dissemination at lower levels, and vastly improve the quality of HUMINT collections as well. On the other hand, most of what he’s asking for is standard SF fare, the kind of stuff the JSOTFs used to know intimately, and why isn’t that the preferred route of meeting these PIRs? I end up with more questions than answers, and knowing how smart Flynn is, it makes me wonder if I haven’t missed the whole point.
The PQS as promulgated is really nothing more than you should already know coming out of NMITC. Good stuff to know, but hardly adequate for a warfare pin, entirely Navy-centric, and woefully devoid of anything that provokes deep thought on the nature of any problem confronting us. Entirely what I expected.
Zane,
Pretty sure McChrystal knew it was coming. After hearing the chatter out of the puzzle palace, not so sure that Gates knew. Not good.
See your point re IPB of the capitals. But McChrystal kinda shaped that via his infamous memo. If this was such a burr under his saddle, why didn’t he include it there?
What he’s asking, if I’m reading it accurately is better info on the social issues. Good tasker, especially for the CG, since then he’d be able to better shape the battle and allocate his forces. The issue still remains how to get that from the limited assets in place. The info is there, but it still comes down to only 24 hours in a day. The intel guys/gals, most good ones will use up about 18 of them and produce enough for a 36manhr day. BUT, you do that to keep your troops alive. Not sure if at the end of the normal day, they’d spend another 2 hrs to send a report up the chain. But there are ways to do it and other teams in the field that can do that. Adding more layers of intel, not sure if thats exactly the right way to go about it.
Since I’m in Alexandria, I think I can actually feel the fear and the trembling at DIA as everyone hides under their desk, lest they be voluntold….