The 11th Annual International Association for Intelligence Education
Riding the Nexus: Cases from Danish Defence
(WORKING PAPER!!!)
Dr. William L. Mitchell
C2 & Intelligence
Centre for Joint Operations
Royal Danish Defence College
IMO -VF11@fak.dk
Panel (B) Future Trends - international Perspectives
Chair: Bob DeGraff,
Weds June 24, 2015 1300-1430hrs
Marymount University
Abstract
The paper will present an overview of the process to reinvigorate
intelligence education within Danish Defence that started in 2009. It will
focus on the efforts to synchronize education and training within this
process, and some of the lessons learned. The paper will specifically draw
upon two cases. The first case deals with efforts to move from education
to training through the teaching of Target Network Modeling as a
common language and technique for the production of intelligence
products to facilitate shared situational awareness. The second case,
examines efforts to move from training to education with the integration
of training technique intelligence roll-ups into Masters level intelligence
courses, forming the frameworks around various concepts for group
discussion, such as awareness vs. understanding, initiative, and deception.
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Introduction
The background to this paper starts in Afghanistan 2007, where the
International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) was scrambling to
adapt to a new strategy adopted by the Taliban. Instead of trying to form
up larger manoeuvre units for more conventional style attacks, they
learned from the success of Iraqi unconventional tactics against the US. It
is here the Afghanistan insurgency, with Improvised Explosive Devices
(IEDs) quickly becoming the number one killer of Afghan and ISAF
forces. Until that point, cold war military intelligence doctrine,
methodologies, and training, was suffice to effectively manage the
operational
environment.
However
operational
environmental
complexities brought to the forefront after 2008, began to illustrate the
outdated weaknesses of military intelligence. It was not a case of there
being insufficient collection assets, or near real time
situational
awareness – but rather the education levels of the analysts, and the lack of
common professional
language and methodologies between analysts.
You might risk many lives and millions of dollars to collect intelligence
in order to answer a question, but one poorly educated all-source analyst
could nullify this investment, with a few poorly thought out sentences.
This experience was the start to intelligence research that would focus on
the battlespace analytical functions, methodologies, and language. It is
here Danish defence began a determined drive to develope common
language and methodlogical tools that facilitate the interaction of theory
and practice for intelligence analysis. Tools that can easily adjust to the
right levels of experience, education available, and be applicable in
diverse operational environments.
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Theory
The first challenge was to try and establish at theoretical framework
around intelligence studies that could act as its ontological foundation
when discussing specific analytical techniques or methodologies.
Essentially it was about more about finding the place of intelligence
studies within already established meta-theoretical frameworks and
communicating it to military analysts in a manner that they both
understand it, and find it useful in practice. To this end, we built a
reference chart that allows some superficial mapping of theories and
methods within a framework of theory vs. practice (See Fig. 1.0). In this
many using caveats and lessons learned from the battlespace we can
illustrate the how meta-theory actually relates to methodological choices
in operational planning.
Fig. 1.0 Theory vs. Practice Orientation Chart
Using this overview approach to bridge the theory-practice divide in
military intelligence education has proven effective when combined with
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concrete examples that start in the battlespace. One such example, is the
case of “The Lost Shuras”. In Afghanistan in 2008, the Taliban had
moved their ‘shura’ meetings indoors, away from the open fields in the
countryside. This was a significant Training, Tactics, and Procedure
(TTP) change from previous behaviour, and we had to think of new
methods to help find where they were now holding their shuras. Drawing
on some of the cultural norms described in the Pashtuwali - a cultural
rule-book of sorts for Pashtu tribes in Helmand – ISAF was able use
certain “norms” as guidance for intelligence collection platforms. When
explaining to students this bridge between this operational collection
activity and meta-theory, it is simply pointed out that the constructivist
understanding of ‘norms’, expected patterns of behaviours, can be
exploited for better positioning of collection assets - if one knows how to
find and understand culture norms. In this case, it was quickly identified
that Taliban “shuras” were now being held in Mosques and schools, and
this fact was discover not by waiting for the Taliban to make a signals
mistake, but rather by focusing collection assets onto something
completely different within the cultural pattern of life around the Taliban
– such as the local petrol shop owner, or even the local cook. Thus the
link between understanding constructivism as a meta-theory with its’ key
tenant concerning norms and identities - and the placing of ISTAR1
assets in the battlespace - is made.
Practice
In practice, when training with various cases, whether they are actual
intelligence collection plans, or support to actual operations through
activities such as target generation and evaluation, the theory-practice
orientation chart provides a common point of reference for comparative
1
Intelligence, Surveillance, Tracking, Aquisition, and Reconnaisance
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studies, or discussions on the products produced by the analytical
process. In Fig.2.0 you can see an example of some of the products that
can be linked back to key choices and key assumptions that belong to
middle and meta social theories.
In the example, the application of
cultural theories to build a human terrain layer through clan identification
& pattern of life (PoL) of the operational area and pirating challenge.
Including the guidance for further collection.
The main argument for teaching intelligence students to recognize their
relationships to middle and meta-theories was quite simple, the theories
with the assumptions that affect world views are there. Whether or not
one decides to recognize and understand their impact on their operational
choices. This point is also illustrated through the fact, that those who
learn this theory-practice orientation method can read an intelligence
report, an operational plan, or even a campaign plan, and relate some of
the choices in them, to various middle and meta theoretical assumptions.
Once military intelligence students have this common theory-practice
understanding, it becomes possible to identify tools that facilitate
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effective intelligence analysis training that strengthens the bridge between
them.
The following sections will present two techniques that we use in Danish
Defence to facilitate bridging the theory-practice divide. Both techniques
have been developed from hard lessons learned in real battlespaces in the
21st century. The first technique is Target Network Modelling (TNM) that
is being taught a decomposition and visualization technique that should
facilitate the shared situation understanding. The second tool is purely a
training technique derived from real battlespace information sharing
systems. It attempts to capture the essence of complexity, uncertainty, and
the time & space challenges of real world intelligence – but in a
manageable classroom setting in the form of short tear-line intelligence
tweets – we call them Intelligence Roll-Ups.
Target Network Modelling
Target network modelling (TNM) is a formal methodology to facilitate
shared situational understanding.
2
In this manner gathering strength in
from others that will help improve the model – fellow analysts,
intelligence collectors, decision-makers, operational planners, and
military commanders – inter-agency cooperation across organizational
boundaries. Similarly, TNM becomes a vehicle for conveying the
complexity of a situation to decision-makers in a fashion that they can
quickly understand. Another significant benefit, is the simple act of
tagging in the TNM, it inherently provides a mechanism for tracking the
2
Situational understanding (SU) refers to the "product of applying analysis and
judgment to the unit's situation awareness to determine the relationships of the
factors present and form logical conclusions concerning threats to the force or
mission accomplishment, opportunities for mission accomplishment, and gaps in
information"
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historic development of targets, operational environments or narratives,
over time. This is a very good basis for intelligence product generation
and comparison. In Fig. 3.0 is an example of a TNM representing a
situational understanding of a threat finance network in the Horn of
Africa region - as understood by one group of intelligence analysts.
.Fig. 3.0 Example TNM Threat Finance
Through decomposition and visualization a very complex operational
environment can be communicated very efficiently. However where the
TNM really contributes to riding the nexus between theory and practice,
is its inherent reliance on hypotheses to provide understanding. If you
look at the different relationships between entities in Fig. 3, you will find
a variety of hypotheses being generated. The link between “AQAP” and
Saudi Arabia is a hypothesis, or the “end-state” and Al-Shaabab, or the
Shura Council and the Houthi Insurgents. All of which provide
intelligence analysts with a rich environment for the application of theory
and method to actual operational issues. For Danish Defence TNM is a
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technique that is currently used in the field - as well as being taught in the
classroom.
Intelligence Roll-Ups
Intellignce roll-ups have been a technique used in Danmark for
intelligence training since 2011. Its origins lie in the battlespaces
of Iraq and Afghanistan when the Joint Chat (J-Chat) was
developed and applied in actual operations. Essentially, a real
time chatroom was established on classified networks for
operational and tactical command and control, including the
integration of intelligence specific chatting. Much like todays
Twitter messages, intelligence inputs tagged (name of who sent
them), and sent real time to a central screen that showed the
sender, time and date. All messages were kept as short as
possible – really forcing the essentials to be shared with all who
were logged into the chat room. The J-Chat was so effective,
that also became judicially acceptable as a log of events for after
action reporting and story boarding. From the battlespace we
began moving this format into the classroom to support the
training of all-sources intelligence analysts.
Essentially, we would start with the end-state and work
backwords generating time-lined intelligence posts in a J-Chat
style log. The utility of this technique in the classroom was an
absolute game changer on so many levels with regards to how
we taught intelligence analysis. Suddenly, it was possible to
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quickly adjust the levels of complexity of the intelligence
problem as needed or fine tune it to help focus on specific
analytical products we will train. This could include tradition
INTSUM type reports to target lists, intelligence gaps lists,
intelligence collection planning, and time-lining, PoL tracking,
geo-rectification, ISTAR synchronization and much, much,
more. In Fig. 4.0 below you can see an example of one such
training roll-up and the different elements included.
Fig. 4.0 Example Intell Roll-UP
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Much like the use of TNMs, using Intell Roll-Ups to train the intelligence
analyst contributes not only to developing a common language around
how one works with intelligence, but rides the nexus of theory-practice
by once again inherently requiring the formulation of the hypotheses that
will drive any TNMs produced, as well as the production of indicators
that can be used to check these hypotheses.
Conclusion
It is hoped that by sharing experiences with techniques for teaching
intelligence analysis, that we can learn from others to make our education
more effective for the 21st century battlespace. Denmarks’ military has
been in constant conflict since 2001. Lessons learned from Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Mali, and Iraq once more, have indicated
strongly that we must better understand the situation first, before we plan,
organize, and execute. This has placed a lot focus on how we teach our
intelligence analysts, and the quality of that education has become more
important than ever. The ability to produce intelligence analysts that can
ride the nexus between theory and practice is essential to manage the
complex missions that characterise warfare in the 21st century.