Small Wars Journal

Changes to Intelligence Mission in Afghanistan Urged

Mon, 01/04/2010 - 6:54pm
Top Intelligence Official in Afghanistan Urges Changes to Intelligence Mission - Major General Michael T. Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger, and Paul Batchelor; Center for a New American Security (CNAS)

CNAS released today a report that critically examines the relevance of the U.S. intelligence community to the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan titled Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan. The authors - Major General Michael T. Flynn, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence in Afghanistan; his advisor Captain Matt Pottinger; and Paul Batchelor, Senior Advisor for Civilian/Military Integrations at ISAF - argue that because the United States has focused the overwhelming majority of collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, the intelligence apparatus still finds itself unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which U.S. and allied forces operate in and the people they are trying to protect and persuade.

Quoting General Stanley McChrystal, the authors write: "Our senior leaders - the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, Congress, the President of the United States - are not getting the right information to make decisions with ... The media is driving the issues. We need to build a process from the sensor all the way to the political decision makers."

Fixing Intel is the blueprint for that process. It describes the problem, details the changes, and illuminates examples of units that are "getting it right." It is aimed at commanders as well as intelligence professionals in Afghanistan, the United States and Europe.

Among the initiatives Major General Flynn directs:

- Empower select teams of analysts to move between field elements, much like journalists, to visit collectors of information at the grassroots level and carry that information back to the regional command level.

- Integrate information collected by civil affairs officers, PRTs, atmospherics teams, Afghan liaison officers, female engagement teams, —non-governmental organizations and development organizations, United Nations officials, psychological operations teams, human terrain teams, and infantry battalions, to name a few.

- Divide work along geographic lines, instead of functional lines, and write comprehensive district assessments covering governance, development, and stability.

- Provide all data to teams of "information brokers" at the regional command level, who will organize and disseminate all reports and data gathered from the grassroots level.

- The analysts and information brokers will work in what the authors call "Stability Operations Information Centers," which will be placed under and in cooperation with the State Department's senior civilian representatives administering governance, development and stability efforts in Regional Command East and South.

- Invest time and energy into selecting the best, most extroverted, and hungriest analysts to serve in the Stability Operations Information Centers.

Read the entire report at CNAS.

Comments

danielet

Fri, 04/16/2010 - 2:17pm

Insurgency is like the pustules of bubonic plague-- a terminal sign that rises from deep within an internal pathologic process to the top. But the pathology of a dying patient that these heralding pustules represent are the late stage of a host-invader interaction where the invader has pretty much won inside the vital organs. We get involved in counter-insurgency as COINers at that point and we sort of blow away the pustules. But are we not thus only spreading the infection?

In Vietnam we never understood that the NLF was a REVOLUTION for the peasants against the narrow world imposed on them by warlords. Our response should not have been counterINSURGENCY because that's just the pustular late grave manifestation of the disease. It should have been a counter REVOLUTIONARY response. Yet we were lucky in that, to keep our casualties down and Viet body count up, Westy blew up every pustule we could find, with peasants and guerrillas all mixed in. As a result, the peasant "sea" that survived our vicious ordnance ran off to the cities, leaving the VC "fish" high and dry. In the cities, thanks to CORDS, these peasants became, in the words of Radio Hanoi "petites bourgeois"-- ie, cells immune to the Red infection and no longer forced into role they played while in the countryside. South Vietnam went from 85% rural to 75% urban, where according to LeDucTho (Hanois top Party theorist), the VC had no infrastructure; hence Hanoi's desperate Tet Offensive of 1968. The cities held and from these cities Saigon's "white mice" police moved out to gradually seize back the countryside.

We forget that like the Viet Minh, the Taliban is a revolutionary movement that saves the people from warlords by forming village units to destroy tribal and elders domination used by the warlords to rule. In Afghanistan we put in a central gov. made up of warlords that they chose at the Berlin Conference. Proof of our success is that as soon as we destroyed Taliban Gov and replaced it with "our" Gov of compliant warlords, heroine sale went up tremendously. We tried to cut it but were forced to go along with it because of the protests of "our allies the warlords." So much for our counterREVOLUTIONARY alternative!

We can only offer the Afghans the revolution we offered the South Vietnamese and almost won: a modern well run urban society for the youth. If we urbanize the youth on our side, we exsanguinate the Taliban of soldiers. What we need is NATO RUN CITIES far out of Pashtun reach at first, that provide FULL education and employment to Pashtun youth, indeed all of Afghanistans youth under our terms of modernity. The economy of these NATO towns must real so the pay can be real good. These towns must be the focus of our security because they constitute the main "oil slicks" we defend while turning Afghanistan into a manufacturing rather than agrarian society through real jobs and real education for the youth--THERES OUR COUNTER-REVVOLUTION, MODERNIZATION through work, social order and education. The remittances the kids send home to the villages will speak louder than the Koranic verses the Taliban's revolution espouses. Taliban wont touch it because it doesnt need it. But warlords will and them we must treat with American-made antibiotics, McChrystals only specialty. Our forces can then turn defensive, protecting OUR cities, not Karzais run by warlords. Very quickly the population, especially youths, will seek what we have to offer as modernity and will gradually accept employment as managers, maintainers and DEFENDERS of THEIR cities. With these as a base we can win the way we ALMOST won in Vietnam. Anyone who wants to debate that we LOST in Vietnam-- having known the war from the depth of Wash DC to the heights of Mekong Delta rice fields and Hanoi's Party HQ-- I would be most willing for I think we are long due for MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE as opposed to saturation bombing in the media by the Petraeus Peanut Gallery and their PowerPoints--who pays for all that? Me? I can use some novel material to argue my case because I am somewhat intimately familiar with what Russia wanted to do in Afghanistan that we spend $millions to prevent; and can compare it to what we tried to do in Vietnam that the Soviets paid millions to prevent.. We reap what we sow so it's time to return to the American humility of the 60s that made America so great in science, politics, diplomacy, warfare, business and morality.

Outlaw 7

Sat, 01/16/2010 - 1:27pm

DE Teodoru:

"Getting beaten by men in rags". To understand an insurgency one has to be taught what insurgency is, how does it survive, evolve, gain strenght, and how does it actively counter our advantages on the technology side.

Where does one see anything like an Insurgency Center teaching this to any officer level, senior NCO level or for that matter the common boots on the ground? We have multiple organizations teaching aspects of it, but nothing centralized and while we are totally focused on the CIED fight we see nothing similar on the insurgency side. We need to teach respect for a given insurgency-and not fear the backlash that the "hey we are the strongest in the world why do we need to know this mentality". IE ask any number of boots ob the ground the following question "what are the typical forms of Taliban ambush techniques and how are they tied to IEDS AND how do you counter them when engaged" and 8 out 10 times you will get a blank stare.

We now have such organizations as AWG, JIEDDO, the NGIC CIPT program and COIC all fighting for their piece of the money pie claiming they have the answer, but nothing equal on the insurgency side.

I would suggest it has to do with the lack of a thorough open discussion of John Robb's theory "open source warfare". If one understands his overall concept and ties it to what Gen. Flynn is discussing you have a potent concept in COIN, but to do that fly's in the face of what Defense Contractors have sold to DoD.

It is amazing the battle videos being currently relased by Iraqi Sunni insurgents, semi mass production of PETN never previously seen, mass production of QA tested IED trigger devices in a "clean room", bounding airborne mines against helos, Arabic/Pastu translations of satcom radio manuals indicating frequency skipping, releases of specific IED attack methods on all versions of mine clearing equipment and MRAPs and list goes on--especially the evolutionary development of the use of the anti-tank grenade RKG-3. Understand the evolution of that weapon system and one gains a massive insight on what the Taliban are currently evolving towards. And I see no internal discussions of this evolution tied to COIN for to understand this evolution tied to true guerrila warfare tactics tied to an aggressive HUMINT/OSINT effort--is the only way forward in Afghanistan

Getting beaten by men in rags is not an option.

One thing that was not addressed was training and experience levels for military intelligence officers. In the USMC, Infantry Bn S3 officers are usually senior majors who are proven performers where as Bn S2's simply have to fog a mirror and may be as jr as a 1stLt. USMC "Warfighting" publication pays a lot of lip service to 'intelligence driving operations' but unfortunately does not back up this philosophy with a reciporical investment in an intel personnel structure that provides trained and experienced intel officers on par with their S3 counterparts.

IntelTrooper (not verified)

Wed, 01/06/2010 - 3:29pm

libertariansoldier:

You're absolutely right, unfortunately, although some autonomy from the whims of the J2 is a good thing. I just wish the Sith Lords would 1) trust their apprentices and provide them with better tools to do their jobs and 2) not try to protect their rice bowl to the detriment of the mission.

libertariansoldier

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 9:55pm

I think you will find a significant problem with your proposals about the NDS as they work so much with the Sith Lords, who will not necessarily be as responsive to the J2's directive as perhaps he would like.

IntelTrooper (not verified)

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 2:16pm

Wim: I agree regarding journalism, although it should probably start with radio journalism and the information centers can translate those into transcripts for record-keeping purposes.

The problem with relying too heavily on local sources is that they may or may not be reporting on the topics and locations on which we need information. Also, military tasking of journalists to collect information would place journalists in danger. I think it is better to increase our collection capabilities and methods. Also, we need to integrate all NDS reporting into our regular flow of information, and provide NDS with the tools to contribute.

libertariansoldier

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 5:15am

Exactly right concerning PIR, IntelTrooper.
What the J2 meant to say:
Commanders and other decisionmakers for years have failed to provide PIRs and EEI on what they REALLY needed. However I am going to blame the intel community because they used their limited resources to respond to the PIR/EEIs the leadership DID provide instead of collecting and reporting on what was really important. I am doing this because they can't do anything to me about it or complain without compromising classified information.
Unlike the past, now they need to focus their limited resources on what the commanders say they need, instead of what they think is important. And if you think this sounds hypocritical you are right, Ummmm, I mean totally mistaken.

IntelTrooper (not verified)

Mon, 01/04/2010 - 8:04pm

Bravo, gentlemen.

One point I want to make is that the sad state of our Priority Intelligence Requirements over the last couple years lies at the feet of the commanders and S/G/J-2s of the various commands. The PIRs for my battalion, brigade, and regional command, top to bottom, in 2008 were inexcusably neglected. Most did not even change when a new command RIP'd in, incorrect grammar and all.

These two excellent points stuck out to me:

<blockquote>The format of intelligence products matters. Commanders who think PowerPoint storyboards and color-coded spreadsheets are adequate for describing the Afghan conflict and its complexities have some soul searching to do. Sufficient knowledge
will not come from slides with little more text than a comic strip. Commanders must demand substantive written narratives and analyses from their intel shops and make the time to read them. There are no shortcuts. Microsoft Word, rather than PowerPoint, should be the tool of choice for intelligence professionals in a counterinsurgency.
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
Uniformed personnel will also work in the Information Centers. In our experience, however, civilians are on average better trained at analysis and writing than military personnel, who are typically cultivated for leadership and management roles rather than analytical jobs. A frank after-action report by XVIII Airborne Corps underscores how far military intelligence training still must go to make analysts relevant in a counterinsurgency. The following is an excerpt from their report: "Intelligence analytical support to COIN operations requires a higher level of thinking, reasoning, and writing than conventional operations. In general, neither enlisted nor officer personnel were adequately trained to be effective analysts in a COIN environment... In an overall intelligence staff of 250, CJ2 leadership assessed four or five personnel were capable analysts with an aptitude to put pieces together to form a conclusion."</blockquote>

John Burnham (not verified)

Mon, 01/11/2010 - 2:49am

The authors' argument - that "eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy" - is based on two rolling markers: first, what the strategy/goals have been; and second, what the "intel community" has been doing and why.

The first has been extensively discussed - how the US/coalition went from a punitive expedition in Afghanistan to creating and stabilizing a nation-state. The authors do not note that this ramping-up in the objective line over the years was a big reason why force levels and strategy have not matched the moving goal posts.

The second marker - and the focus of their article - has also been changing. But it isn't that folks have been doing it wrong; rather, the resources just have not been there to ensure security for either the troops or the population. Brigades and battalions have definitely been thinking about all sorts of different ways to do things over the years - but they simply have not had the luxury of considering these tweaks and recommendations.

Consider one of the "grassroots" vignettes - the situation in Nawa, Helmand province. The paper notes that in June 2009 "...a small number of Marines and British soldiers were the only foreign forces...the troops could not venture a kilometer from their cramped base without confronting machine gun and rocket fire from insurgents."

But in July, 800 additional Marines arrived and began "sweeping across the district". We then jumps to five months later, when things are great - and proceeds to detail the different way the intel officers and analysts did things. But that skips over a big part - the fighting that had to go on before Nawa became such an oasis. Only passing reference - "...with few shots fired by Marines after their initial operation...".

Wow. That "initial operation", so quickly noted, was actually a few months of the Marines taking it to the enemy - with a cost in friendly killed and wounded. Yet the paper only hones in on what the analysts and intel officers were able to do after the security was established. Question: could the S-2 from that "small group" in the "cramped base" have done something similar? Was it just because he wasn't enlightened, or guided correctly from his battalion or brigade? Nope. Then why is this used as an example of folks coming in, thinking differently, and succeeding? It neglects a huge factor at work - increased forces and resources - thus it, like the other two vignettes, leave much to be desired in the "correlation versus causation" department.

Some will argue that it isn't important - that what we've been doing this past eight years hasn't worked, and it's critical that (regardless why things haven't worked) we must implement the recommendations. Perhaps the recommendations in the paper will help. But it's important to assess the validity of their framework because it goes to the central question: are training and institutions organizationally broken, or are things as they are because troops been holding on in a dangerous environment with insufficient numbers and an ever-changing "strategy" that veers from "can't commute to work" to "securing the population" to...whatever comes next.

One can assert that there are "plenty of analysts" in country, and they just need to be reorganized and refocused on all the information that is ostensibly drifting around at lower levels; but if there are not enough troops to conduct a Nawa-like offensive in all the areas of interest, then there is nobody to conduct shuras with the locals, or patrol and gain a sense of what people are saying - all the data that the authors want their (civilian) analysts to be mining through.

Over the years the leadership has searched for ways to do much of what the authors discuss - different ways to measure stability, working with agriculture development teams and human terrain teams to strengthen the other means of information gathering, restructuring intel support to give commanders and troops the best perspective - but it has been overshadowed by security concerns.

When the overriding issue is that COPs and OPs could be overrun by the enemy, or that polling stations, bridges and district centers would be blown up or burned down - and a too-small amount of force or analytic power is available to do it all - lots of that other stuff drops by the wayside.

The addition of the extra brigade into RC-East in spring 2009 had an immediate effect - as did the addition of the Marines into RC-South in the summer. But none of this is acknowledged by the authors. Their argument is about why we just need to *think* differently, be creative, be *better*. I'm sorry, but there's another key part - if we're going to do this whole "build a country to deny a safehaven" thing - lots of troops and lots of fighting will be necessary to get the security needed (yes, we should be encouraging the Afghans to fight as well - but if we want an immediate effect, more U.S. brigades helps). In other contexts, GEN McChrystal has noted the fighting that will be needed, but the authors don't connect these points.

Another big change that came in this summer - USFOR-A has been completely revamped - a strong well-staffed structure, new 3-star command to ease the span of control issues, new joint ops centers, more bandwidth...all of this has come into play since this summer. But the authors again doesn't acknowledge how this - and all the additional troops - have enabled folks to (perhaps) think about doing different things besides tracking "insurgents" or "IED cells". USFOR-A was stood up on 01 November 2008 - with basically no additional resources, just another patch for the ISAF folks to wear.

The authors' statement that focusing on the enemy is an "understandable" but ultimately emotional (and incorrect) response by commanders is somewhat galling...as if commanders in years past had a choice where to place their ample resources, and they simply misused them.

I'm glad that - given our expansive goals in Afghanistan - more troops are there and USFOR-A is injected with energy and resources to guide the effort. But the study is wrong when it asserts we've simply "overemphasized detailed information about the enemy at the expense of political, economic, and cultural environment".

This argument - and much of the COIN/population-centric thesis - is founded upon a glossing over of the cost of the security that is necessary as a foundation to these efforts. Assessing things as wrong while sitting in new circumstances with new options is as wrong as simply calling for "COIN analysts" or "stability operations information centers" - the fight for Afghanistan has been and will continue to be complex, and simplistic, bumper-sticker assessments and recommendations will not help.

Most importantly, it is essential to understand the "why" if one is going to make restructuring recommendations...to paraphrase David McCullough, trying to make decisions about the future without knowing the past is like planting cut flowers...nobody wants to do that with so much at stake in Afghanistan/Pakistan. This study is one window into the conflict, but should not be the only one.

Outlaw 7

Wed, 01/13/2010 - 12:06am

In some aspects the article released via CNAS by Gen. Flynn was an exceptional review of MI problem areas.

1. The Human Terrain effort is struggling and falling apart.

2. The CIED fight based on Iraq is definitely not the CIED fight in Afghanistan.

3. Most BCTs after numerouse rotations in Iraq which was an anti-insurgency fight are having difficulties in shifting gears and actually conducting counterinsurgency operations based on population control and protection--and if the BCTs are having problem one knows that MI is having problems. Perfect example of this is the difficulties being experienced by 5/2 SBCT

4. The scenarios built by the CTCs really do not reflect the complexities of the Afghan fight.

5. Too many decisions being made on "storyboards" vs really sitting down and reading well thought through "Word documents". Meaning too many risk adverse BCT Cmdrs who want to share the decision making process with other officers in the event of high losses.

It is amazing that many in the intel world failed to see this coming.

Outlaw 7

Wed, 01/13/2010 - 12:44pm

If you think Gen. Flynn was pointing out MI issues one really needs to look at the overall CIED fight.

Check the following concept:
Capability Integration Team(CIT) IED Defeat

and the multiple or redundent line and block system just released (Dec 18 2009)by TRADOC.

It is a massive attempt to install a very redundent system by a MG at Ft. LW in conjuction with a major defense contractor at a time when CIED is simply not working in Afghanistan which is a total different IED fight than what the system is use to in Iraq.

One would think that after the millions throw at the BCT CIED fight training and after four rotations by most of the active Army BCTs they would get the CIED fight and the need for a totally new organizational layer would not be needed.

Now there is a organizational third layer in the CIED effort that is in fact handled by a number of other organizations.

This was also pointed out by Gen. Flynn.

DE Teodoru (not verified)

Thu, 01/14/2010 - 2:14am

Gen. Flynn gave this old man who lived through too many lost wars a lot of hope. Imagine that you observe a strange looking new organism. You try to observe it but it darts back and forth in and out of view unexpectedly. How would a field biologist go about studying its zoology? The answer is by placing it within its environment. What Gen. Flynn is saying is that now we only tag Afghans as "Taliban" on the basis of muzzle flash or some sort of whisper in someone's ear-- attached to a cash-generous hand-- sending a drone or a platoon to fix&destroy the presumptive organism. That's fine if you're Napoleon anywhere but in Spain but it won't do if you are McChrystal in Afghanistan, Odierno in Iraq or Napoleon in Spain. I traced our "Better War" in Vietnam getting better as we learned how to get "strategic intel"--thats watching, watching, watching without shooting. Thats how, poor Bernard Fall was trying to tell us, Gen. Chanson pacified Cochinchina

May I remind that men in planes, choppers, trucks and playing with video-game drones are getting beat by men in rags. The reason is not new and the lessons are not either. But each commander forgets them as he tries to make a name for himself as Mr. BANG without getting pink-slipped for too many casualties. I had a general on loan to the Bush White House warn me that if I wanted to continue our dialogue I had better never again mention "that loooosers war, Vietnam." As an old man all I can do is cry for our mom and dad soldiers such amnesiacs lead. We are bleeding America dry dropping, for example four 500lbs JDAMS on three guys with one AK-47 and they survived. Please watch this video to see why Gen. Flynn wrote this paper.
http://video.pbs.org/video/1295117818/

As an American by choice I am made ill watching OUR mom and dad children sent in as soldiers intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb and no one cares because Americans suffer from the "ain't my kid going to war" disconnect syndrome. I often heard people say: "Nobody made them go, they chose it, now let them do the job they're paid to do." My answer is that no one can consider himself an American if he won't prevent be done with OUR NATION'S kids what he would not allow be done with his biologic kids. That OUR kids were defeated by criminal negligence at command level is FINALLY becoming appreciated. As our mom and dad soldiers kill in fear that they might make a mistake that makes for orphans and widows back home, ask yourselves what is being done to optimize the reason and the effect of their combat. Soldiers obey but their fellow citizens make sure that they are not hated for wining and then hated even more when theyre losing by the people they risked life and limb to protect. We've all seen how retreating armies are treated by those whose lands they invaded. We can't let that happen again to OUR kids. To win we must not permit self-promoting commanders with peanut galleries of "strategy academics" serving as their "expert" chorus to, in the words of Gen. Flynn, dupe with PowerPoints. We must demand that, in the words of Gen. Flynn, they convince with MicrosoftWord. Hes right on point: stop cartoon intel and paint a full intel tableau without ideological confabulations to fill in the lacunae; it's harder but it brings back the moms and dads "mission accomplished" to raise great first class American kids.