Changing the Culture of Military Intelligence
More on military intelligence in this 27 November 2009 post at AEI’s Center for Defense Studies – Changing the Culture of Military Intelligence by Philipp Tomio.
Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, the U.S. intelligence chief in Afghanistan, said the American intelligence effort in Afghanistan is under-resourced and requires more UAVs, intelligence analysts, and surveillance satellites to defeat the Taliban insurgency. According to a recent article in The Los Angeles Times, Flynn, who was sent to Afghanistan to improve the quality of U.S. intelligence gathering there, is said to be frustrated that other senior officers at home do not view the issue with the same degree of urgency. Originally ordered by Gen. McChrystal to lead an overhaul of how U.S. intelligence is gathered, analyzed, distributed, and employed by American troops in the field, Flynn joined McChrystal’s inner circle from the Joint Staff at the Pentagon where he was the J-2 responsible for military intelligence. Flynn firmly believes in the military’s need for a radically different approach to collecting intelligence on insurgent networks, their resources, movements, and whereabouts. To build a complete picture of the enemy, Flynn believes, the U.S. needs to do a better job at collecting and exploiting information on insurgents when they move, regroup, and communicate after an American or allied attack. In the past, the military primarily employed intelligence to plan and prepare for military operations, and to adjust its course of action during a campaign. Today, according to Flynn, “we do the opposite. We do the [operations] to get the [intelligence].” …
More at CDS.
