TF Odin

The Army has quietly decided to try going it alone for the important surveillance mission, organizing an all-Army surveillance unit that represents a new move by the service toward self-sufficiency, and away from joint operations. Senior aides to SECDEF say that he has shown keen interest in the Army initiative — much to the frustration of embattled Air Force leaders — as a potential way to improve battlefield surveillance.

Task Force Odin — the name is that of the chief god of Norse mythology, but it also is an acronym for “observe, detect, identify and neutralize.” The task force of about 300 people and 25 aircraft is a Rube Goldberg collection of surveillance and communications and attack systems, a mash-up of manned and remotely piloted vehicles, commercial aircraft with high-tech infrared sensors strapped to the fuselage, along with attack helicopters and infantry.

The Army cobbled together small civilian aircraft, including the Beech C-12, and placed advanced reconnaissance sensors on board. Also assigned to the task force are small, medium and larger remotely piloted Army surveillance vehicles, including the Warrior and Shadow, with infrared cameras for night operations and full-motion video cameras. All are linked by radio to Apache attack helicopters, with Hellfire missiles and 30-millimeter guns, and to infantry units in armored vehicles.

The work of the new aviation battalion has been exceptionally active, using remotely piloted surveillance aircraft to call in Apache helicopter strikes with missiles and heavy machine gun fire that have killed more than 3,000 adversaries in the last year and led to the capture of almost 150 insurgent leaders.

"At Odds With Air Force, Army Adds Its Own Aviation Unit"

Task Force ODIN Using innovative technology to support ground forces

Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices by Mosab Hassan Yousef

Since he was a small boy, Mosab Hassan Yousef has had an inside view of the deadly terrorist group Hamas. The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status . . . and power. But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence, and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader. In Son of Hamas, Mosab Yousef--now called "Joseph"--reveals new information about the world's most dangerous terrorist organization and unveils the truth about his own role, his agonizing separation from family and homeland, the dangerous decision to make his newfound faith public, and his belief that the Christian mandate to "love your enemies" is the only way to peace in the Middle East.

By Way of Deception: The Making of a Mossad officer by Victor Ostrovsky

The # 1 New York Times best seller the Israeli foreign intelligence agency The Mossad tried to ban. The making of a Mossad officer is the true story of an officer in Israel's most secret agency. The first time the Mossad came calling, they wanted Victor Ostrovsky for their assassination unit, the kidon. He turned them down. The next time, he agreed to enter the grueling three-year training program to become a katsa, or intelligence case officer, for the legendary Israeli spy organization. By Way of Deception is the explosive chronicle of his experiences in the Mossad, and of two decades of their frightening and often ruthless covert activities around the world. Penetrating far deeper than the bestselling Every Spy a Prince, it is an insider's account of Mossad tactics and exploits. In chilling detail, Ostrovsky asserts that the Mossad refused to share critical knowledge of a planned suicide mission in Beirut, leading to the death of hundreds of U.S. Marines and French troops. He tells how they tracked Yasser Arafat by recruiting his driver and bodyguard; how they withheld information on the whereabouts of American hostages, paving the way for the Iran-Contra scandal; and how their intervention into secret UN negotiations led to the sudden resignation of ambassador Andrew Young and the downfall of his career. By Way of Deception describes the shocking scope and depth of the Mossad's influence, disclosing how Jewish communities in the U.S., Europe, and South America are armed and trained by the organization in secret ?self-defense? units, and how Mossad agents facilitate the drug trade in order to pay the enormous costs of its far-flung, clandestine operation. And it portrays a network that has grown dangerously out of control, as internal squabbles have led to the escape of terrorists and the pursuit of ?policies? completely at odds with the interests of the state of Israel. This document is possibly the most important and controversial book of its kind since Spycatcher.

Digital Triage Forensics: Processing the Digital Crime Scene

The book is designed to be used in the training of our soldiers in battlefield collection principals worldwide. Digital Triage Forensics (DTF) is a procedural model for the investigation of Digital Crime Scenes including both Traditional Crime Scenes and the more complex Battlefield Crime Scenes. The United States Army and other traditional Police agencies use this model for current Digital Forensic Applications. The tool, training, and techniques from this practice are being brought to the public in this book for the first time. Now Corporations, Law Enforcement, and Consultants can benefit from the unique perspectives of the experts who coined "Digital Triage Forensics".

Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War

The U.S. government spends enormous resources each year on the gathering and analysis of intelligence, yet the history of American foreign policy is littered with missteps and misunderstandings that have resulted from intelligence failures. In Why Intelligence Fails, Robert Jervis examines the politics and psychology of two of the more spectacular intelligence failures in recent memory: the mistaken belief that the regime of the Shah in Iran was secure and stable in 1978, and the claim that Iraq had active WMD programs in 2002.

The Iran case is based on a recently declassified report Jervis was commissioned to undertake by CIA thirty years ago and includes memoranda written by CIA officials in response to Jervis's findings. The Iraq case, also grounded in a review of the intelligence community's performance, is based on close readings of both classified and declassified documents, though Jervis's conclusions are entirely supported by evidence that has been declassified.

In both cases, Jervis finds not only that intelligence was badly flawed but also that later explanations—analysts were bowing to political pressure and telling the White House what it wanted to hear or were willfully blind—were also incorrect. Proponents of these explanations claimed that initial errors were compounded by groupthink, lack of coordination within the government, and failure to share information. Policy prescriptions, including the recent establishment of a Director of National Intelligence, were supposed to remedy the situation.

In Jervis's estimation, neither the explanations nor the prescriptions are adequate. The inferences that intelligence drew were actually quite plausible given the information available. Errors arose, he concludes, from insufficient attention to the ways in which information should be gathered and interpreted, a lack of self-awareness about the factors that led to the judgments, and an organizational culture that failed to probe for weaknesses and explore alternatives. Evaluating the inherent tensions between the methods and aims of intelligence personnel and policymakers from a unique insider's perspective, Jervis forcefully criticizes recent proposals for improving the performance of the intelligence community and discusses ways in which future analysis can be improved.

Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis

by the authors of Psychology of Intelligence Analysis and A Tradecraft Primer

Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis is a unique and far reaching compilation of 50 techniques that analysts can use to improve the rigor of their analysis. Use of the techniques almost always saves analysts time and facilitates collaboration, especially at the start of a project. The techniques are largely drawn from the intelligence world, but are also practical tools for analysts in a wide variety of professions such as law enforcement, medicine, finance, and business. In addition to defining the role and scope of Structured Analysis as a distinct form of analysis, the book systematically walks readers through a taxonomy of eight distinct categories of techniques that shape a robust analytic process. Each of the 50 techniques includes step-by-step instructions, a description of both when to use the technique and the value it adds to analysis, and potential pitfalls to be avoided when using it. Examples of the technique and an explanation of how it relates to others in the book are also included in many of the descriptions. The authors augment this extensive set of techniques with chapters on effective analytic collaboration, how to validate the effectiveness of Structured Analytic Techniques, and a vision for how to achieve a more robust analytic climate in the future. By defining the domain of structured analytic techniques, providing a manual for teaching these techniques, and outlining the research that needs to be done on these techniques, the book lays a common ground that will enable analysts to work even more effectively and efficiently.

Intelligence Analysis: How to Think in Complex Environments by Wayne Michael Hall and Gary Citrenbaum

Intelligence Analysis: How to Think in Complex Environments fills a void in the existing literature on contemporary warfare by examining the theoretical and conceptual foundations of effective modern intelligence analysis—the type of analysis needed to support military operations in modern, complex operational environments. This volume is an expert guide for rethinking intelligence analysis and understanding the true nature of the operational environment, adversaries, and most importantly, the populace.

Intelligence Analysis proposes substantive improvements in the way the U.S. national security system interprets intelligence, drawing on the groundbreaking work of theorists ranging from Carl von Clauswitz and Sun Tzu to M. Mitchell Waldrop, General David Petraeus, Richards Heuer, Jr., Orson Scott Card, and others. The new ideas presented here will help the nation to amass a formidable, cumulative intelligence power, with distinct advantages over any and all adversaries of the future regardless of the level of war or type of operational environment.

Advanced Analysis - In Detail:

• Decomposition
• Critical Thinking
• Link Analysis
• Pattern Analysis
• Trend Analysis
• Anticipatory Analysis
• Technical Analysis
• Tendency Analysis
• Anomaly Analysis
• Cultural Analysis
• Semiotics Analysis
• Aggregation Analysis
• Recomposition
• Synthesis

Developing STORM, a Methodology for Evaluating Transit Routes of Transnational Terrorists and Criminals by Mark T. Clark and Brian Janiskee

In July 2008, a California State University (CSU) consortium became the first academic organization to accept a “challenge project” from the NSA’s Institute for Analysis (IFA). A challenge project consists of a question for which the IFA seeks a fresh answer from outside the Intelligence Community (IC). The challenge process begins with individual NSA analysts who approach the IFA with particularly vexing questions. IFA then evaluates these for their importance, timeliness, and suitability to outside research. Once the IFA approves a question for a challenge project, the question is reframed to make it suitable for open-source research by whatever group is assigned the project.

Challenge projects vary in complexity. Some involve a direct, one-time answer to a highly specialized question. Others, however, are more extensive and require the group taking the challenge not only to answer the question but also to provide a reproducible methodology. Customarily, these challenges are contracted out to private firms. However, the IFA recently opened the process to universities identified by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) as “Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence” (IC CAE).1 The CSU consortium is one of these centers and accepted the first such challenge offered to a university group.

Intelligence Integration in Palantir: An Open-Source View of the Afghan Conflict

In this video, Palantir explores a number of ways that Palantir can help commanders and analysts to achieve the information advantage required to win the Afghan counterinsurgency battle:

• Enabling information flow from the bottom up, ensuring that the critical knowledge gained on the ground reaches all who need to know
• Combining data on insurgent groups and local populations into one common operating picture
• Enriching traditional intelligence with the insights of local leaders, UN officials, NGOs, Provincial Reconstruction Teams, and Civil Affairs officers
• Providing a framework for collaboration in remote and austere environments
  

Download the WMV (54 MB)Note: All data contained in this video are unclassified and open-source.

What Afghanistan Can Learn from Colombia by Robert Haddick

Source:Posted by Robert Haddick on January 11, 2010 10:55 AM on smallwarsjournal.com

The United States will not succeed in Afghanistan if Afghanistan’s own security forces don’t eventually secure the country. Few analysts dispute this point. But do the U.S. and Afghan governments have the right plan for building up Afghanistan’s security forces? In an essay I wrote for The American, a journal published by the American Enterprise Institute, I assert that the U.S. and Afghan governments can learn a lot by studying how over the past decade Colombia reformed its army and greatly improved its security situation.

An excerpt:
Ten years ago, Colombia faced a security crisis in many ways worse than that which Afghanistan currently faces. But over the past decade, Colombia has sharply reduced its murder and kidnapping rates, crushed the array of insurgent groups fighting against the government, demobilized the paramilitary groups that arose during the power vacuum of the 1990s, and significantly restored the rule of law and the presence of the government throughout the country.

With the assistance of a small team of U.S. advisers, Colombia rebuilt its army. In contrast to [General Stanley] McChrystal’s plan for Afghanistan, Colombia focused on quality, not quantity. Colombia’s army and other security forces have achieved impressive success against an insurgency in many ways similar to Afghanistan.

I discuss the similarities and differences between the security challenges in Afghanistan and Colombia. I then argue that Colombia’s relatively small but elite professional army, its emphasis on helicopter mobility, and its local home-guard program provide a powerful model for reforming Afghanistan’s security forces.

Click here to read the essay.

How Crime Pays for the Taliban by Aryn Baker (TIME article)
Taliban: An Organizational Analysis by Major Shahid Afsar, Major Chris Samples, Major Thomas Wood

Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan

Working Paper from the Center for New American Security http://www.cnas.org

Authors: Major General Michael T. Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger, Paul D. Batchelor.

This report critically examines the relevance of the U.S. intelligence community to the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. The authors - Major General Michael T. Flynn, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence in Afghanistan; his advisor Captain Matt Pottinger; and Paul Batchelor, Senior Advisor for Civilian/Military Integrations at ISAF - argue that because the United States has focused the overwhelming majority of collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, the intelligence apparatus still finds itself unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which U.S. and allied forces operate in and the people they are trying to protect and persuade.

Quoting General Stanley McChrystal, the authors write that "Our senior leaders - the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, Congress, the President of the United States - are not getting the right information to make decisions with ... The media is driving the issues. We need to build a process from the sensor all the way to the political decision makers."

This report is the blueprint for that process. It describes the problem, details the changes, and illuminates examples of units that are "getting it right." It is aimed at commanders as well as intelligence professionals in Afghanistan, the United States and Europe.

The Evolution of Structured Analytic Techniques by Richards J. Heuer, Jr.

Presentation to the National Academy of Science, National Research Council Committee on Behavioral and Social Science Research to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security, Washington, DC, December 8, 2009.

Primary Source: Text and mp3: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bbcss/DNI_Heuer.html
Available on IAFIE Website as PDF and DOC.

Mr. Heuer has 58 years of experience working for the US Government in both operations and analysis for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1951 to his retirement in 1979, as an independent contractor for CIA from 1979 to 1995, and a consultant for the Department of Defense Personnel Security Research Center from 1995 to the present. He is the co-author of Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence scheduled for publication February 2010, author of the 1999 book Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, and editor of the 1978 book Quantitative Approaches to Political Intelligence: The CIA Experience.

Targeting 101: Emerging Targeting Doctrine by LTC David N. Propes

Analyzing Intelligence: Origins, Obstacles, and Innovations by Roger Z. George

Drawing on the individual and collective experience of recognized intelligence experts and scholars in the field, "Analyzing Intelligence" provides the first comprehensive assessment of the state of intelligence analysis since 9/11. Its in-depth and balanced evaluation of more than fifty years of U.S. analysis includes a critique of why it has under-performed at times. It provides insights regarding the enduring obstacles as well as new challenges of analysis in the post-9/11 world, and suggests innovative ideas for improved analytical methods, training, and structured approaches. The book's six sections present a coherent plan for improving analysis. Early chapters examine how intelligence analysis has evolved since its origins in the mid-20th century, focusing on traditions, culture, successes, and failures.The middle sections examine how analysis supports the most senior national security and military policymakers and strategists, and how analysts must deal with the perennial challenges of collection, politicization, analytical bias, knowledge building and denial and deception. The final sections of the book propose new ways to address enduring issues in warning analysis, methodology (or 'analytical tradecraft') and emerging analytic issues like homeland defense. The book suggests new forms of analytic collaboration in a global intelligence environment, and imperatives for the development of a new profession of intelligence analysis. "Analyzing Intelligence" is written for the national security expert who needs to understand the role of intelligence and its strengths and weaknesses.Practicing and future analysts will also find that its attention to the enduring challenges provides useful lessons-learned to guide their own efforts. The innovations section will provoke senior intelligence managers to consider major changes in the way analysis is currently organized and conducted, and the way that analysts are trained and perform.