Counterinsurgency and the
Education of the GEOINT
Professional
Todd S. Bacastow
Professor of Practice for Geospatial Intelligence
John A. Dutton e-Education Institute
The Pennsylvania State University
August 5, 2008
“Counterinsurgency is military,
paramilitary, political, economic,
psychological, and civic actions taken by
a government to defeat insurgency.”
Joint Pub 1-02/ FM 3-24
/MCWP 3-33.5, p. 1-1
U.S. Army Spc. Roger Rich visits with an Iraqi child during a stop in a village near the
city of Musayyib, Iraq, while on a civil affairs mission, June 12, 2005. Rich is assigned to
Scout Platoon, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, part of the 155th Brigade
Combat Team. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Edward G. Martens.
“Irregular Warfare (IR), Military Operations Other Than
War (MOOTW), Limited Wars, or whatever other
moniker the army has put on counterinsurgency
(COIN), peacekeeping, peace-enforcement, etc., have
traditionally received short shrift from the military
education system….”
Insurgency/Counterinsurgency:
Does the Army “Get It?”,
Kevin Reynolds, Feb 2007
COIN 101 - Principles
It’s about competing for the loyalty of the
people
Firepower is not the answer
The goal is to provide a secure environment
for reforms and development
Cut the insurgent off from support of the
people
If the insurgents obtain sanctuary from
nearby nations the challenge is greatly
increased
Iraq, Jan. 30, 2005: An Iraqi man
shows off his ink-stained finger
after casting his ballot at a polling
station in Jisr Diala on the
southern outskirts of Baghdad,
Iraq. (AP Wide World Photo/John
Moore).
COIN 101 - Phases
Source: RAND, 2008
COIN 101 – Intelligence
Conventional
conflict
• Identifies opportunities and
constraints
• Collects on the enemy’s
“industrial footprint”
• Goal is to help destroy the
enemy force
• Situational templates with data
pushed to the analyst
• Standards for communicating
COIN
• Identifies who and why
• Collects on the population
• Goal is to correlate, track, and
apprehend
• Highly varied needs with
locally developed data
• Ad hoc information exchange
with many
• Is law enforcement-like
Source: RAND, 2008
What’s education?
• Education is concerned with the
development of the intellect
• Training deals with learning specific
skills
• Education is a personal activity
• Training is developing skills for
others
“the exploitation and
analysis of imagery and
geospatial information to
describe, assess, and
visually depict physical
features and
geographically referenced
activities on the Earth.”
Title 10 U.S. Code §467
“a means of visualising
the instance, situation or
forecasting the same.”
Brigadier Nick Rigby
former Director of Intelligence
for the UK Ministry of Defense
Geospatial Intelligence
GEOINT
What’s geospatial intelligence?
Geospatial intelligence
Cholera outbreak in Soho, England, in 1854
Dr. John Snow (1813-1858), a legendary
figure in understanding and resolving a social
problem through the use of spatial analysis.
Geospatial intelligence professional
No
adequate
definition
since the
field is too
new
• 2001 - Developing the
Geospatial Workforce
• 2003 - Geographic
Information Science and
Technology Body of
Knowledge (GISTBoK)
• 2007 - US Geospatial
Intelligence Foundation
Accreditation Standards
Broad competency areas
Technical
Situational
Analytical
Personal
After:
Building the Geospatial Workforce
Cyndi H. Gaudet, Heather M. Annulis, and Jon C. Carr
URISA Journal • Vol. 15, No. 1 • 2003
PSU Geospatial Intelligence Program
GEOG 882
Geographic Foundations of
Geospatial Intelligence
GEOG 883
Remote Sensing for the
Geospatial Intelligence
Professional
GEOG 884
Geographic Information Systems
for the Geospatial Intelligence
Professional
IST 885
Introduction to Multi-Sensor Data
Fusion
GEOG 889
Virtual Field Exercise for the
Geospatial Intelligence
Professional
PSU vs ABCA Report
Many of Penn State’s
educational objectives
miss the needs of
geospatial intelligence
professional the COIN
domain.
# 10 - Legal
Current
Needed
• Awareness
• Evaluating the host
country legal
issues associated
with data collection
and human rights
# 9 - Geospatial Forensics
Current
Needed
• Collect data for
manipulation
• Protocols to collect,
process,
safeguard, and
evaluate spatial
data as evidence
# 8 - Language/Communications
Current
Needed
• National/
international
cartographic
standards
• Preparing the
professional for
effective cross
cultural/
organizational
communications of
geospatial
information
Soviet era map symbols
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/maps/keymap/chapter2_1.pdf
# 7 – Organizational
Current
Needed
• Understanding the
US intelligence
community
• Working as a team
of nations, global
NGOs, and foreign
agencies
• Customer
relationship
management
map of NATO PRTs in Afghanistan, valid as at 20 April 2007. [23]
A full-size version of this map is available at:
http://www.nato.int/ISAF/media/pdf/placemat_isaf.pdf
# 6 – Working with open source
Current
Needed
• Approached in an
ad hoc manner
• Preparation to find,
evaluate, and use
unstructured text,
hard and softcopy
maps, atlases,
gazetteers, human
terrain data
(cultural and
economic),etc
# 5 – Working with data
Current
Needed
• Data about the
open-physical
environment
• Applying known
data sources
• Understanding
data issues
• Applying existing
formats
• Data about the
human and urban
environment
• Creating SDI-like
data organizations
• Analyzing data
quality
• Creating data
structures
Iraqi survey data collectors speak with a
village elder during the course of the first
phase of the Landmine Impact Survey. http:
www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/b/91052.htm
# 4 – Add to the toolset
Current
Needed
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Overlay
Buffering
Containment
Image processing
Cluster analysis
Network analysis
Diffusion modeling
Trend analysis
Predictive
modeling/gaming
A Social Network Analysis of the Iranian
Government, [November, 2001]
# 3 – Ethics education
Current
Needed
• Awareness
• Evaluating an
ethical issues with
respect to data
collection and
analytical practice
# 2 – Culture
Current
Needed
• Awareness
• Evaluating the
impact of culture on
data collection and
analytic results
Fairfax County Police,
www.fairfaxcounty.gov/police/police31.htm
# 1 – Geospatial analytic thinking
Current
Needed
• Workflows
• Structured methods
to help overcome
human cognitive
limitations or pitfalls
We recommend the following GIS workflow:
1. Define the problem or scenario.
2. Identify the deliverables (mostly maps) needed to support
the decision.
3. Identify, collect, organize, and examine the data needed to
address the problem.
4. Document your work:
a. Create a process summary.
b. Document your map.
c. Set the environments.
5. Prepare your data.
6. Create a basemap.
7. Perform your analysis.
8. Produce the deliverables, draw conclusions, and present
your results.
Our World GIS Education
Level 4: Making Spatial Decisions, ESRI
Geospatial analytic thinking
• The geospatial professional should:
– Understand the cognitive biases and fallacies
– Apply appropriate geospatial techniques for
creating and testing hypothesis
• rational choice theory
• utility theory
• game theory, etc.
– Evaluate temporal-spatial trend analysis and
spatial correlation
– Apply forecasting methods in the geospatial
domain
•
•
•
•
•
decision tree analysis
analytic hierarchy process
alternative scenarios/futures
Delphi technique
Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction
(LAMP)
Summary
Physical  Human
Open terrain  Closed terrain
Data  Evidence
Top down  Bottom up
Individual  Team
Descriptive  Predictive
Workflows  Analytic process
“We must cease confusing mastery of software
commands with attaining a grasp of critical
intellectual concepts.”
Duane F. Marble, ArcNews, 1998
U.S. Army Maj. Robert Holbert takes notes as he talks and drinks tea with
local school and Andar Special Needs School administrators during a
cordon and search of Nani, Afghanistan, on June 2, 2007. Holbert is
attached to the Human Terrain Team, 4th Brigade Combat Team. DoD
photo by Staff Sgt. Michael L. Casteel, U.S. Army. (Released)
Key References
•
Counterinsurgency Warfare, Galula, 1964
•
The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation, Lind, 1989
•
Field Manual 100-7, Decisive Force: The Army In Theater Operations, 1995
•
Military Operations Other Than War Briefing Slides and Script, J7, undated
•
The Information Edge: Imagery Intelligence and geospatial Information in an
Evolving National Security Environment, NIMA, 2000
•
Developing the Geospatial Workforce, Gaudet, 2001
•
GIS & T Body of Knowledge, DiBiase, 2003
•
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, Nagl, 2005
•
Army-Marine Corps Counter Insurgency Field Manual, January 2007
•
ABBA Report, 2007
•
USGIF Accreditation Standards, 2007
•
A Conceptual Framework for Facilitating Geospatial Thinking, Golledge, 2008
•
Analytic Support to Intelligence in Counterinsurgency, RAND, 2008
•
International Association for Intelligence Education Conference, June 2008
•
The Future of Intelligence Co-operation between Military Forces and Private
Security Companies based on Lessons Learned in Iraq" Strachan-Morris, Mar
2008
•
Taxonomy of Structured Analytic Techniques, Presentation, IAFIE Conference,
June 2008
•
Insurgency/Counter-Insurgency: Does the U.S. Army "Get It," Reynolds, June 2008