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….

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.

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?

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.