Abstract
Rapid changes in technology and the democratisation of information capabilities have sparked the concept of ‘War in the Information Age’. Intelligence branches within NATO militaries have been slow to adapt and risk being outpaced. Sean Ryan, a former British military intelligence officer, argues that while some structural changes have occurred, lessons from the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns about the nature of modern intelligence have not yet been learned, and fundamental changes to the doctrine, training and culture of military intelligence are required.
Notes
1 Michael T Flynn, Matt Pottinger and Paul D Batchelor, ‘Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan’, Voices from the Field series, Center for a New American Security, January 2010, p. 9.
2 John Keegan, Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda (London: Pimlico, 2003), p. 384.
3 David Omand, ‘Why Don't They Listen: Why Won't They Listen?’, Foundation for Science and Technology, 10 November 2010, <http://www.foundation.org.uk/events/pdf/20101110_Omand.pdf>, accessed 16 July 2015. © RUSI JOURNAL AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2015
4 British Army, ‘Intelligence Corps Role’, <http://web.archive.org/web/20130517072226/http://www.army.mod.uk/intelligence/role>, accessed 16 July 2015 (via the Wayback Machine at <http://web.archive.org/>. Also found at Ministry of Defence New Zealand, ‘Defence Careers: Intelligence Officer’, <http://www.defencecareers. mil.nz/army/jobs/intelligence-operator>, accessed 16 July 2015.
5 A widely known, and widely misinterpreted, idea. For an accurate account, see Lisa Winter, ‘Schrödinger's Cat: Explained’, IFL Science, 12 August 2014, <http://www.iflscience.com/physics/schr%C3%B6dinger%E2%80%99s-cat-explained>, accessed 16 July 2015.
6 Quoted in Thomas Martin, Poiesis and Possible Worlds: A Study in Modality and Literary Theory (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), p. 153.
7 The possible quotation attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, ‘Give me generals who know something about tactics and strategy, but best of all, give me generals who are lucky’, reflects recorded comments on Sauret (‘Good, very good soldier; not educated enough for a general; too little luck’, from ‘Correspondence de Napoléon 1me, 1796, Au Directoire Exécutif 890’) and other dictums (‘In war, luck is half in everything’) from Herbert Edward Law and Charles Lincoln Rhodes (trans.), Napoleon in his Own Words (Chicago, IL: A C McClurg, 1916), p. 139, <https://archive.org/stream/napoleoninhisown00napo#page/138/mode/2up>, accessed 16 July 2015.
8 Richard Ekins, Jonathan Morgan and Tom Tugendhat, ‘Clearing the Fog of Law: Saving Our Armed Forces from Defeat by Judicial Diktat’, Policy Exchange, 2015, p. 8.
9 Ministry of Defence, ‘Joint Doctrine Publication 2-00: Understanding and Intelligence Support to Joint Operations’, Developments, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, 2011, para. 336.
10 ‘Such conclusions as “We do not know” … should be regarded as badges of sound analysis, not as dereliction of analytic duty’. See Richards J Heuer, Jr, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Center for the Study of Intelligence (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 1999), p. xiii.
11 Tool: a procedure which may be applied to a range of problems (for example, factor analysis); process: a procedure which must be applied to a specific problem.
12 Author interview with British Army officer, London, June 2015; author interview with British Army officer, Oxford, May 2014.
13 US Army, ‘Field Manual No. 34-130: Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield’, 1994.
14 Heuer, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis.
15 Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Analyse (F3EA) is a targeting cycle developed by US Special Operations Forces in Iraq. Materiel and Personnel Exploitation (MPE) applies police forensic techniques to the operational environment.
16 Such as ASCOPE, PMESII-PT, IPE. See Jimmy A Gomez, ‘The Targeting Process: D3A and F3EAD’, Small Wars Journal (Vol. 7, No. 7, July 2011).
17 Jack Lochhead and John Clement, Cognitive Process Instruction: Research on Teaching Thinking Skills (Philadelphia, PA: Franklin Institute Press, 1979), Introduction.
18 ‘The creation of the ISR Brigade and 77 Brigade is a manifestation of how seriously the Army is taking information and intelligence’. Jim Hockenhull, ‘Future Capabilities and Structures: ISR’, speech given to RUSI Land Warfare Conference, London, 1 July 2015.
19 Ibid.
20 Steven G Coulson, ‘Retention Issues Highlighted by Direct Entry INT CORPS Officers’, MBA dissertation, University of Leicester, 2014.
21 Scientific and Technical Intelligence Committee, ‘Preparing US Intelligence for the Information Age: Coping with Information Overload’, 1993, <https://fas.org/irp/cia/product/preparing.pdf>, accessed 16 July 2015.
22 Ibid.
23 ‘Years of ISAF operations and the recent Operation Unified Protector adopted somewhat difference processes’. See NATO, ‘Preparing the Alliance for Tomorrow's Challenges’, Transformer 2012-02, March 2012, <http://www.act.nato.int/article-2012-2-30>, accessed 16 July 2015. ‘If you have a guy working with one computer, most of these systems, they are not compatible, you cannot have them working together … and to get a common picture is very hard’. Vice Admiral Pires da Cunha, quoted by Pierre Tran, ‘NATO Industry Forum Highlights Capability Divide’, Defense News, 16 November 2014, <http://archive.defensenews.com/article/20141116/DEFREG01/311160019/NATO-Industry-Forum-Highlights-Capability-Divide>, accessed 16 July 2015; David P Auerswald and Stephen M Saideman, NATO in Afghanistan: fighting Together, fighting Alone (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), p. 46.
24 ‘[The British Army] did not have an intelligence database in Afghanistan until 2009’. See Hockenhull, ‘Future Capabilities and Structures’.
25 Michael T Flynn, Rich Juergens and Thomas L Cantrell, ‘Employing ISR, SOF Best Practice’, Joint Force Quarterly (No. 50, 2008), p. 60.
26 Stanley McChrystal, My Share of the Task: A Memoir (New York, NY: Penguin, 2013), chapter 8.
27 Not just ‘red teaming’ as currently understood in business, but literally playing the enemy role. See David F Longbine, ‘Red Teaming: Past and Present’, United States Army Command and General Staff College, 2008, <http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a485514.pdf>, accessed 16 July 2015, pp. 4–6.
28 Stephen Marrin, ‘Intelligence Analysis: Turning a Craf t into a Profession’, 2005, <http://aofi.org.br/images/inteligencia/ IA_Turning_Craft_into_Profession_ Marrin.pdf>, accessed 16 July 2015.
29 Paul Newton, ‘Adapt or Fail: The Challenge for the Armed Forces After Blair's Wars’, in Jonathan Bailey, Richard Iron and Hew Strachan (eds), British Generals in Blair's Wars (Oxford: Ashgate, 2013).
30 ‘An Operational Pinch Point (OPP) is a branch specialisation, sub-specialisation or area of expertise, where the shortfall in trained strength (officers or other ranks) is such that it has a measurable, detrimental impact on operations’. See ‘Annex: Government Response’, in House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Ministry of Defence Annual Report and Accounts 2012–13’, <http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmdfence/1198/119804.htm>, accessed 16 July 2015. See also Chapter 2, ‘Performance and Risk Management in the MoD’, <http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmdfence/653/65305.htm>, Table 2, accessed 16 July 2015.
31 ‘All of the skills of scientific investigation are matched by critical thinking’. Steven D Schafersman, ‘An Introduction to Critical Thinking’, January 1991, <http://facultycenter.ischool.syr.edu/ wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Critical-Thinking.pdf>, accessed 16 July 2015.
32 Roberto Desimone and David Charles, ‘Towards an Ontology for Intelligence Analysis and Collection Management’, 2002, paragraph 2.1, <http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/project/coalition/KSCO/ksco-2002/pdf-parts/F-ksco-2002-paper-11-desimone.pdf>, accessed 16 July 2015.
33 Douglas McEachin, ‘Foreword’, in Heuer, Psychology of Intelligence.
34 Nicholas Carter, ‘The Future of the British Army: How the Army Must Change to Serve Britain in a Volatile World’, speech given at Chatham House, London, 17 February 2015, <http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/field/field_document/20150217QBritishArmy.pdf>, accessed 16 July 2015.
35 Hockenhull, ‘Future Capabilities and Structures’.
36 Heuer, Psychology of Intelligence, p. 112. For accessible discussion of the psychological effects which contribute to these behaviours, see Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Princeton, NJ: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
37 Thomas E Ricks, ‘Overhauling Intelligence in the Afghan War’, Foreign Policy, 5 January 2010.
Additional information
Sean Ryan was a Captain in the British Army Intelligence Corps, with operational intelligence experience over several tours in Afghanistan. He wrote this article while a Visiting Fellow on the Changing Character of War programme at Oxford University.