Beneath the Surface: Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace for Counterterrorism

Abstract

Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. This book presents the deep subject-matter understanding gained by a mid-career U.S. Air Force officer who as a Research Fellow engaged in a year-long quest for insight into asymmetric conflict analysis and synthesis. During the year, through innumerable exchanges with expert counterterrorism practitioners inside and outside of government, he acquired a first-hand appreciation of how intelligence can more systematically build and employ a capability to gain ground in this challenging environment. His formulation, presented here in an accessible, systematic manner that makes it suitable as a handbook for practitioners at any level, goes well beyond any existing guidance yet assembled in one package.This product has been reviewed by senior experts from academia and government, and has been approved for unrestricted distribution by the Office

‘We recommend compliance’: bargaining and leverage in Ethiopian–US intelligence cooperation

“…What is clear is that these humanitarian initiatives afford valuable intelligence gathering opportunities to US forces in areas that they deem vulnerable to extremism. These projects can be seen as part of a larger US attempt to map the terrain, establish local sources of human intelligence and prepare the battlespace in the Horn of Africa (Thomas 2004).…”

Reflections on 10 Years of Counterterrorism Analysis

“…To develop effective plans and approaches, analysts and operators must understand the roles of religious leaders, local politicians, and non-governmental, international and multi-national organizations present in a region, together with understanding of foreign internal defense forces, civil affairs, and the public, in effect, all those that shape the environment in which terrorist networks are spawned and operate. 41 This is no small task and worthy of an entirely separate discussion. Suffice it to say for our purposes in this evaluation, analysts and operators will have to build even more diffuse communities of interest and sources of information than are normally considered for lethal operations against terrorists.…”

“…Moreover, the obligation of intelligence organizations to deliver actionable intelligence to affect tactical CT targets in the near-term continue to be levied along with long-range, threat estimates intended for executive, policymaking levels. 2 Improvements in intelligence sharing and new information sources have been leveraged, but shortcomings in these areas continue to impede mission success.…”

On the Challenges for Strategic Intelligence: Cognitive Biases and Information Overload

“…To get a sense of whether the organization is a strength or weakness, what its vulnerabilities are, and how it might be affected directly or indirectly, we need to assess its design, the independence of its units, the location of leadership, and "how hierarchical dynamics may be mixed with the network dynamics." (Thomas 2004, p. 159)), but this extensive response seems the most ineffective, although it remains the one of the main ways of responding the informational overload. It also contains the risks of complexing hierarchical interaction: bigger volumes of information could be required to be reduced and simplified, which can make the analysis more shallow [17, p. 10].…”