Provides an analytic framework and procedure for the intelligence analysis of irregular warfare (IW) environments that can serve as the basis for IW intelligence curriculum development efforts. Defines IW in terms of two stylized situations: population-centric (such as counterinsurgency) and counterterrorism. Provides a detailed review of IW-relevant defense policy and strategy documents and a list of relevant doctrinal publications.
The aim of this study was to assist the Department of the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) in better understanding the intelligence analytic requirements of irregular warfare (IW). To do this, RAND was to develop an analytic framework for IW that could be used as the basis for an educational and training curriculum that would enhance NGIC analysts' capabilities for assessing IW situations. The outcomes of IW situations depend on both the level of one's understanding of the population and the deftness with which non-military and indirect means are employed to influence and build legitimacy. Accordingly, the study team's principal efforts were devoted to developing an analytic framework for understanding IW situations, whether population-centric (such as counterinsurgency) or counterterrorism, that focused on "irregular features" of the operating environment -- that is, the central environmental and operational variables whose interplay determines the overall trajectory of an irregular conflict toward either success or failure. The central idea of the framework is that it is an analytic procedure by which an analyst, beginning with a generic and broad understanding of a conflict and its environment and then engaging in successively more-focused and more-detailed analyses of selective topics, can develop an understanding of the conflict and can uncover the key drivers behind such phenomena as orientation toward principal protagonists in the conflict, mobilization, and recruitment, and choice of political bargaining or violence. Put another way, the framework allows the analyst to efficiently decompose and understand the features of IW situations -- whether they are of the population-centric or the counterterrorism variety -- by illuminating areas in which additional detailed analysis could matter and areas in which it probably will not matter. This analytic procedure involves three main activities and eight discrete steps.
"Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that U.S. forces need more-effective techniques and procedures to conduct counterinsurgency. It is likely that U.S. forces will face similar, irregular warfare tactics from future enemies that are unwilling to engage in conventional combat with U.S. forces. This monograph examines the nature of the contemporary insurgent threat and provides insights on using operational analysis techniques to support intelligence operations in counterinsurgencies. The authors examine the stages of an insurgency and discuss the kinds of intelligence that are needed at each stage. A number of techniques -- pattern discernment and predictive analysis, for example -- appear to show promise of being useful to intelligence analysis. The authors also explore two closely connected methods in depth to examine the interactions between friendly and enemy forces: game theory and change detection." -- p. [4] of cover.
With the recent proliferation of service-oriented architectures (SOA), cloud computing technologies, and distributed-interconnected systems, distributed fusion is taking on a larger role in a variety of applications—from environmental monitoring and crisis management to intelligent buildings and defense. Drawing on the work of leading experts around the world, Distributed Data Fusion for Network-Centric Operations examines the state of the art of data fusion in a distributed sensing, communications, and computing environment. Get Insight into Designing and Implementing Data Fusion in a Distributed Network Addressing the entirety of information fusion, the contributors cover everything from signal and image processing, through estimation, to situation awareness. In particular, the work offers a timely look at the issues and solutions involving fusion within a distributed network enterprise. These include critical design problems, such as how to maintain a pedigree of agents or nodes that receive information, provide their contribution to the dataset, and pass to other network components. The book also tackles dynamic data sharing within a network-centric enterprise, distributed fusion effects on state estimation, graph-theoretic methods to optimize fusion performance, human engineering factors, and computer ontologies for higher levels of situation assessment. A comprehensive introduction to this emerging field and its challenges, the book explores how data fusion can be used within grid, distributed, and cloud computing architectures. Bringing together both theoretical and applied research perspectives, this is a valuable reference for fusion researchers and practitioners. It offers guidance and insight for those working on the complex issues of designing and implementing distributed, decentralized information fusion.
Today's protracted asymmetrical conflicts confuse efforts to measure progress, often inviting politics and wishful thinking to replace objective evaluation. In Assessing War, military historians, social scientists, and military officers explore how observers have analyzed the trajectory of war in American conflicts from the Seven Years’ War through the war in Afghanistan. Drawing on decades of acquired expertise, the contributors examine wartime assessment in both theory and practice and, through alternative dimensions of assessment such as justice and proportionality, the war of ideas and economics. This group of distinguished authors grapples with both conventional and irregular wars and emerging aspects of conflict—such as cyberwar and nation building—that add to the complexities of the modern threat environment. The volume ends with recommendations for practitioners on best approaches while offering sobering conclusions about the challenges of assessing war without politicization or self-delusion. Covering conflicts from the eighteenth century to today, Assessing War blends focused advice and a uniquely broad set of case studies to ponder vital questions about warfare's past—and its future. The book includes a foreword by Gen. George W. Casey Jr. (USA, Ret.), former chief of staff of the US Army and former commander, Multi-National Force–Iraq.
"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.
Tests whether the analysis of competing hypotheses reduces cognitive bias, and proposes a more effective approachReveals that a key element of current training provided to the UK and US intelligence communities (and likely all 5-EYES and several European agencies) does not have a proven ability to mitigate cognitive biasesDemonstrates that judging the credibility of information from human sources means that intelligence analysis faces greater complexity and cognitive strain than non-intelligence analysisExplains the underlying causes cognitive biases, based on meta-analyses of existing researchShows that identifying the ideal conditions for intelligence analysis is a more effective way of reducing the risk of cognitive bias than the use of ACHRecent high-profile intelligence failures - from 9/11 to the 2003 Iraq war - prove that cognitive bias in intelligence analysis can have catastrophic consequences. This book critiques the reliance of Western intelligence agencies on the use of a method for intelligence analysis developed by the CIA in the 1990s, the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH). The author puts ACH to the test in an experimental setting against two key cognitive biases with unique empirical research facilitated by UK's Professional Heads of Intelligence Analysis unit at the Cabinet Office, and finds that the theoretical basis of the ACH method is significantly flawed. Combining the insight of a practitioner with over 11 years of experience in intelligence with both philosophical theory and experimental research, the author proposes an alternative approach to mitigating cognitive bias that focuses on creating the optimum environment for analysis, challenging current leading theories.
This study examines how terrorist groups transition to insurgencies and identifies ways to combat proto-insurgents. It describes the steps groups must take to gain the size and capabilities of insurgencies, the role of outside state support, and actions governments can take to prevent potential insurgencies from blossoming. The most effective U.S. counterinsurgency action would be to anticipate the possibility of insurgencies developing; it could then provide training and advisory programs and inhibit outsides support.
Intelligence continues to undergo significant changes at a remarkable pace, notably developments related to “Big Data,” surveillance, and cyber. Intelligence today involves multiagency, multinational, multidisciplinary, multidomain information sharing and sense-making, conducted by commerce, academic, government, civil society, media, law enforcement, military, and nongovernmental/nonprofit organizations. Increasingly complex systems, including interrelated technical dimensions, are central to modern defense systems. Intelligence Engineering: Operating Beyond the Conventional provides a new framework for generating analysis, exploring how systems to system-of-systems can be harnessed both for and into the future. Intelligence engineering (IE) involves the use of scientific and technical knowledge to artfully create, operate, maintain, and dismantle complex devices, machines, structures, systems, and processes that support and/or disrupt human endeavor occurring in the intelligence context. Spanning both human and technical intelligence realms, IE includes the collection and analysis of information that is of military and/or political value, and that relates to international relations, defense, and national security. Strategic Futures, risk management across to resilience concerns, are similarly engaged.
