Comment: The problems being experienced in Afghanistan are the pay out from the "Peace Dividend." The Peace Dividend -- remember that? The United States didn't quite know how to act/react to winning the Cold War. Among other Defense and Intelligence moves, HUMINT and offensive counterintelligence operations were cut-off at the knees. Sources were left standing on street corners of foreign capitals, waiting to meet their American "friends." The friends often did not show. Case officers sought greener pastures. Professionals retired. A huge void was created at what was then the "journeyman" experience level of our intelligence operations. An understanding and appreciation for something a little more sophisticated than "Order of Battle" templates and overwhelming military power was lost. Sophisticated human intelligence operations are not conducted in unit tour rotation increments of time. They're not conducted based on the occupation of a particular operating base. The seasoned leadership and experience "lost" with the Peace Dividend has now manifested itself in a theater of war that -- on a good day -- is extremely challenging. The intelligence solution does not fit very well with the usual "Big Army" answers and doctrine on how to organize and operate. Let's see if we are able to adapt.
MG Flynn & Co. have released a paper through a think tank -- not the Pentagon or DIA -- which in itself is most unusual. I've included a link to the full PDF of the document -- and listed the summary bullets of their recommendations.
Among the initiatives Major General Flynn directs:
• Empower select teams of analysts to move between field elements, much like journalists, to visit collectors of information at the grassroots level and carry that information back to the regional command level.
• Integrate information collected by civil affairs officers, PRTs, atmospherics teams, Afghan liaison officers, female engagement teams, willing non-governmental organizations and development organizations, United Nations officials, psychological operations teams, human terrain teams, and infantry battalions, to name a few.
• Divide work along geographic lines, instead of functional lines, and write comprehensive district assessments covering governance, development, and stability.
• Provide all data to teams of "information brokers" at the regional command level, who will organize and disseminate all reports and data gathered from the grassroots level.
• The analysts and information brokers will work in what the authors call "Stability Operations Information Centers," which will be placed under and in cooperation with the State Department's senior civilian representatives administering governance, development and stability efforts in Regional Command East and South.
• Invest time and energy into selecting the best, most extroverted, and hungriest analysts to serve in the Stability Operations Information Centers.
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