2009 perhaps we should have shouted
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This document provides a retrospective from 1998 on intelligence challenges and proposed solutions. Some key points: 1. In the 1990s, the author recognized emerging threats like information warfare, transnational gangs, disease, and economic competition that conventional intelligence was not prepared to address. 2. A 2008 conference reiterated these issues and the need for a strategic model linking threats, preventive action, and whole-of-government/multinational cooperation. 3. The top threats to global security are said to be poverty, disease, environmental degradation, and conflict, according to a 2004 UN report, though these are still ignored. 4. To address today's threat of global destabilization, the author
2009 perhaps we should have shouted
- 1. Cx On trillionth and second thought….. Perhaps We Robert David STEELE Vivas has been a Marine since 1975 and an intelligence professional since 1979. He writes frequently on intelligence and strategy. Should Have In 1988 it was my great privilege to serve as the senior civilian responsible for founding the Marine Shouted: Corps Intelligence Center (MCIA), and in the same year, to serve as a staff writer for General Al Gray, then Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC) His A Twenty-Year 1989 article, “Global Intelligence Challenges for the 1990’s,” concisely identified the differences between Retrospective the conventional and emerging threats, called for a radical increase in our exploitation of open sources of information, and demanded that we devise new By ROBERT DAVID STEELE VIVAS means of producing intelligence (decision-support) about radical and revolutionary non-state threats so as to justify and guide what he called “peaceful preventive measures.” No general then or since has made as much sense. He was a warrior, but above
- 2. all he was a leader who understood the urgency of world-class speakers and trained 7,500 mid-career education and the role of intelligence as a form of officers from across 40 countries and—I am told— remedial education for decision-makers. indirectly influenced another 25,000 in another 50 countries. In the USA, only the U.S. Special Below I reproduce the core distinction that Operations Command J-23 (OSINT Branch) meets my General Gray made on the basis of the strategic expectations of competency. generalizations that were achieved very quickly by MCIA in its pioneering Open Source Intelligence On 19 December 1995 I was one of a handful of (OSINT) study, Overview of Planning and Americans invited to address the French national Programming Factors for Expeditionary Operations conference on “War and Peace in the 21 st Century.” in the Third World, eventually published in 1990. Dr. Robert Gates, Dr. Samuel Huntington, and Dr. Charles Cogan (a former covert operations Conventional Threat Emerging Threat personality) were the others, with Sir Michael +Governmental +Non-Governmental Howard from England being memorable as well. +Conventional/Nuclear +Non-Conventional +Static Orders of Battle +Dynamic or Random Below is the original outline of my remarks. +Linear Development +Non-linear DIAGNOSIS of the Failure of Intelligence (INT) +Rules of Engagement +No Constraints 1. Four Warrior Classes +Known Doctrine +Unknown Doctrine 2. Dependency on Information +Strategic Warning +No Existing I&W Net 3. Information Explosion-Drowning +Known Intelligence +Unlimited 5th Column 4. Technological Complexity and Vulnerability Assets 5. Ascendancy of the Disposed Figure 1: What the Marines Knew in 1988 STRUCTURAL IMBALANCE in Defense and INT 1. States Assume Borders, Citizens, Tax Base I feel such as sense of déjà vu, especially as I 2. Defense Assumes Conventional Enemy recollect how General Gray stressed in his article 3. Intelligence Assumes Conventional Enemy, Optimizes that the narcotics threat then resisted so fiercely by for Secrets the other three military services was in fact a “type” 4. Information Infrastructure Assumes No Threat, No threat that we needed to take seriously. Attack 5. Law Assumes General Obedience, Domestic Criminals In 1992 I participated in three significant national defense evolutions: a force structure study, a NEW FORMS OF VIOLENCE and INT Challenges national intelligence review based on lessons 1. Information Warfare (Global, Corporate, and Individual, learned from Gulf War I, and a comprehensive Citing Schwartau, Strassmann) review of defense command and control, 2. Transnational Gangs—Money, Computers, Fifth Column, Ruthlessness communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) 3. Proliferation—Sowing Dragon’s Teeth led by The Honorable Dwayne Andrews. In brief, 4. Disease—Socio-Economic, Ideo-Cultural, Techno- here is what I learned back then: Demographic 5. Economic Competition and National Attractiveness Shooters don’t do calculus—USMC absolutely would not reduce shooters to augment thinkers EARLY WARNING through Virtual Communities as a force multiplier 1. Chaos and “Just in Time” Order via Virtual INT 2. Voluntary Sharing & Integration of Information Numerous intelligence failures across all of the 3. Public Makes Policy, Public Must Understand Threat disciplines in Gulf War I, but especially Human 4. Political Accountability Essential—Leadership Intelligence (HUMINT), were ignored 5. Warning for Integration of Defense and Police PREVENTION & ACTION with Information Strategies As long as there is plenty of money for the 1. Domestic Intelligence—Statecraft as Soulcraft military-industrial complex in C4I (generally, 2. Environmental Intelligence—Eliminate External Service-specific communications systems), no Diseconomies one really cares about intelligence results 3. Technical Intelligence—Bad Engineering, Bad Human Resource Management (“Gov Spec Cost Plus”) In 1992 I also sponsored a conference on OSINT. 4. National Information Strategies—Four Pillars Over the course of fifteen years I recruited 750 5. Bottom Line: Know When to Kill, Kill Wisely
- 3. I take no pleasure in seeing such anticipatory insight ignored by those gathered in Paris for the event but I Above is my mid-1990’s proposed “four forces also hold the USG blameless—I failed to impress. after next,” updated in 2008 to add the Information In 1998 the Army Strategy Conference, an annual • Technology will not replace boots on the ground event, addressed Asymmetric Warfare. Below are • We suffer from fallacy of misplaced the highlights from that professional gathering of concreteness (or more recently, from ideological scholars and practitioners.1 fantasies unchecked by reality) • We don’t do offensive asymmetry • Decision-making has forgotten to plan, cannot adapt to change, and is unable to stimulate a • Our planning process cannot deal with radical serious dialog rapid shifts • Mobility is more important than mass • Civil-military relationships are weak • Technology without intelligence is blind • States are unlikely to attack us directly • Weapons’ cost must be appropriate to the target • Army-Marine Corps competing with Navy-Air profile and priority Force for budget share • Time and space favor the asymmetric non- • Need a new military: four forces after next: traditional enemy o Big War (60%) • We spread ourselves too thin, this also favors o Small War (20%) the asymmetric enemy o Peace War (10%) • Vulnerabilities are largely in the civil sector o Homeland Defense (10%) • Enemies know how to wage war between the • Soldiers cannot be policemen—but civilian seams of our legal systems capacity to plan, program, command, and execute complex peace operations does not • Nation is vulnerable to campaigns that leverage exist—need Whole of Government capacities the international and local medias • Active-reserve mix needs adjustment • Dependency on volunteer contractors in the battle area is a major Achilles’ heel • Private sector role needs examination • We constantly underestimate willingness of • Intelligence remains an afterthought others to do great harm to bystanders • Issue is one of balance across the instruments of national power
- 4. Operations (IO) implications for how we need to integrate thinkers with shooters from now on.
- 5. This was in 1998. We would not hear such heresy We lack a strategic analytic model that defines again until 2008, when the same Army Strategy linkages and allows for early warning of non- Conference addressed the need for Rebalancing the traditional crises while enabling both Whole of Instruments of National Power. Complete notes Government and the voluntary harmonization of from every speaker, and my own summary article, multinational budgets and behaviors on any are online.2 Below are a mere handful of the given mutual interest. insights, most a stark repetition of the same thoughts ten years earlier, now given slightly more In the intervening time, in 2004, the United cachet by Dr. Joseph Nye’s publications on “soft Nations (UN) High-Level Panel on Threats, power” and the new meme de jour, “Whole of Challenges, and Changes produced an extraordinary Government” planning and operations. report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility. This report identified, in priority • We are not well organized for new era order, the following ten high-level threats to • Threats are complex and dispersed humanity and thus to our security: • We’ve neglected four of the five D’s, Defense 01 Poverty being the one not neglected: 02 Infectious Disease o Diplomacy 03 Environmental Degradation o Development 04 Inter-State Conflict o Domestic Capacity (Private Sector) 05 Civil War o Decision-Support (Intelligence) 06 Genocide • Military cannot win peace alone 07 Other Atrocities • Preventive action prior to crises needed 08 Proliferation • Need stabilization & reconstruction forces 09 Terrorism • USA suffers from a strategic deficit—we lack 10 Transnational Crime strategists as well as standing plans for inter- agency engagement before, during, and after No one that I can recollect made mention of this conflict internationally-validated threat review in 2008. Despite the fact that LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft, • Security must be re-defined to address non- USAF (Ret) was the American participant, this military non-human threats (disease, comprehensive definition of both the threats and environment) while also addressing failed states their relative priority in relation to human security and super-empowered individuals was ignored, not only in the USA, but around the • Existing funding vehicles do not work world by governments carrying on with “business as • Information domain is key terrain and we usual.” continue to be complacent and ignorant • Money assigned to information arena is buying With that as preamble, and meaning no tools, not content and not understanding disrespect for the hundreds of Americans from • Need a Cultural Advisor to the President Franklin “Chuck” Spinney to Col John Boyd, USAF (Ret) to Col G. I. Wilson, USMC (Ret) and many I neglect many other highly relevant observations others, I will begin my conclusion—what is to be only to emphasize that my notes online do justice to done—with a quotation from Senator San Nunn (D- the event and all of the speakers, in detail. GA), then the Chairman of the Senate Armed My three “take-aways” from this event revolved Services Committee (SASC).3 around what may finally be a new-found I am constantly being asked for a bottom-line appreciation for the following facts: defense number. I don’t know of any logical way to arrive at such a figure without analyzing the threat; Our system simply does not work without determining what changes in our strategy We have no idea who is doing what or who is should be made in light of the changes in the threat; spending what or what is being bought country and then determining what force structure and by country or issue by issue weapons programs we need to carry out this revised strategy.
- 6. The Threat The Strategy The “threat” to the USA can be summarized with There is no point in reviewing either the national two words: global destabilization. This is not the or the military strategy of the USG today, as both are place to review our role in creating that threat, only completely disconnected from both reality and the to address “what is to be done” about it. needs of the American people. They are at best publicity documents driven by ideological fantasy, The threat is predominantly non-military in and at worst a severe betrayal of the public trust— nature, and demands not only Whole of Government an impeachable offense if the public ever notices. remediation, but multinational and non- governmental remediation. The U.S. Government If the federal government—a service of common (USG) is not trained, equipped, organized, nor led so concern created by the fifty United STATES of as to be competent in either of those two capacities. America—is to justify its existence in light of today’s threat environment, it must return to the U.S. The threat is best understood in the context of Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, Buckminster Fuller’s “system of systems” so that we and re-discover our shared purpose: life, liberty, and might recognize that all of the threats are related to the pursuit of happiness (i.e. fulfillment of our one another and must be addressed as a systemic potential, not joy for joy’s sake). whole. Invading Haiti or Panama or Afghanistan or Iraq without planning for the transition to peace is at Should the federal government recommit to best delusional and at worst a betrayal of the public founding principles, then it follows that our national trust.4 Although we give lip service to this idea of strategy must strive to protect all who enjoy our waging peace now, it is still not real—to the slightest domestic environment from each of the ten threats degree—in how we continue to plan, program, here at home, while addressing the eradication of all budget, train, equip, and organize. ten threats simultaneously, first in the Western Hemisphere where instability most directly It merits emphasis that the U.S. Intelligence threatens our future, and then in the rest of the Community (US IC) is not trained, equipped, world. In both instances, our foreign interventions organized, nor led to be effective in all-source must be both Whole of Government and collection and processing—i.e. including all open multinational in nature. sources in 183 languages we do not speak—nor does it have a strategic analytic model able to generate Domestically, we have achieved a complete decision-support helpful to each and all the threats. disconnect among the individual citizens who pay taxes; the national (partisan) legislative branch that Cabinet Departments and independent agencies authorizes and appropriates those taxes (while also do not “do” intelligence. They thrive on biased, late, assuming trillions of dollars in debt not approved by filtered, and incomplete information from the public); the Executive that spends that money, in stakeholders, and strive to maintain budget share, the case of the Department of Defense (DoD) nothing more. without ever accounting for it; and the private sector In the absence of “management” from the Office that profits at taxpayer expense while externalizing of Management and Budget (OMB), we must add social and environmental costs to future our own incoherence to the threat list. We are our generations. In my view this means that our federal own worst enemy, combining ignorance, hubris, a government is either clinically insane or insanely blundering bureaucracy, and a plundering private criminal. sector, all coming together to make the USA a I favor the former. Our elected and appointed clumsy even ridiculous Goliath in a world swarming officials have reached their high positions through a with agile Davids. combination of popularity and service within “closed In this light, the current military budget and what circles” of partisan power. Neither their minds nor it buys can be seen as both grotesquely expensive their ethics are sufficient to the challenges they face and ineffective—even assuming the best possible on our behalf. weapons and mobility systems performance, we This is why I concluded in 1992, after the Central have a force built to address only 10% of the threat. Intelligence Agency (CIA) told me they would
- 7. participate in a conference on Open Source year in spending by organizations while attracting Intelligence (OSINT) only if it were SECRET and for commitments from the 80% of the one billion rich U.S. Citizens alone, that the US IC is a major part of that do not give to charity now. the problem, and their obsession with “secrets for Here is the strategy, devised by the 24 co- the President” is a major cause of our strategic founders of the Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 incapacity. Secrets can be ignored, and as my second graduate thesis documented in 1987—as confirmed by my service as Study Director for the flagship global review by MCIA—no one in Washington actually draws on intelligence (decision- support) to make a decision. Not only is Washington operating on 2% of the available relevant OSINT, but decisions are still being made behind closed doors for partisan reasons associated with personal profit, not the public interest. The Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS) of the USG is broken beyond repair. OMB manipulates numbers it does not understand. Congress approves numbers it knows to be false. The public pays taxes without any hope of an accounting, or of receiving fair value for their hard- earned contributions to the Commonwealth. Public Charity. In this light, I conclude that a proper Strategy can Figure 3: A Sustainable Global Strategy only be conceived if three pre-conditions are met: Despite clear-cut findings from the Aspin-Brown Commission in 1996 (OSINT should be a top-priority Electoral Reform is needed to break the backs of for funding and leadership attention) to the 9-11 the two-party bi-opoly and restore integrity to Commission (Open Source Agency on page 413) as our “representational” democracy. well as a myriad of other Presidential, Congressional, All legislation without exception must be posted and private sector reviews, the US IC today remains online and in printed form for public untrained, unequipped, and disorganized in relation examination at least one week prior to its being to the ten high-level threats to humanity. It is voted on and all those voting on legislation must consequently incapable for providing decision- certify that they have read every word. support to the Cabinet Secretaries, to Assistant Secretaries, to action officers and program Intelligence (decision-support) must be managers, or to Congress, where none of the reinvented as a public good. Easily 90% of our Committees receive reliable comprehensive decisions at all levels of the USG, from the decision-support. highest to the lowest (action officer) would be In my view, DoD is the only “actor” with the improved by actually using unclassified (public) capacity to act, and also—in light of the incapacity of decision-support that is not now available from CIA—the only actor able to achieve what I have within the Departments or from the US IC. known was needed ever since I helped create MCIA: With that as a preamble, I can now present a America needs an Open Source Agency (OSA) funded proposed strategy for getting the USA back on track; by DoD on a non-reimbursable basis, under for creating Whole of Government capacity for both diplomatic auspices, with a direct report relationship domestic and global remediation; and for creating a to the Vice President (VP), who should serve as the Global Range of Needs Table as the front end of a over-all strategist for the USG, advising the President Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, on Whole of Government and Whole Earth initiatives Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making intended to achieve our shared objectives of life, (M4IS2) grid. The latter will influence $1 trillion a
- 8. liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, both here at commander or policy-makers knowledge. That home and around the globe.5 leaves a 96% vacuum that is now filled by lobbyists, hollow media, foreign representatives, and other The Strategic Analytic Model stakeholders intent on leveraging the taxpayers Although I have created analytic models before, I dollar for private gain. At this time no one, from the was directly inspired by the High-Level Threat President to Congress as a whole, is actually focused Panel’s coherent prioritization of the ten high-level on attending to the public interest. threats to humanity, and this led me to create the Below is an operational view of the analytic blow strategic analytic model, one that has not been model, such that no threat, or any policy, can be accepted by CIA or any other element of the US IC. evaluated in isolation. This model demands that every decision-maker at every level be fully conscious of the Whole of Government implications of any decision in any domain. I recognized, as others have before me, that neither our Executive nor our Legislative branches are trained, equipped, or organized to be effective in today’s world, as most are still organized for the world of the 1950’s and the ignorance that prevailed Figure 5: Whole of Government Analytic Template then about interconnectivity within the system of Using this strategic analytic model, combined systems. with the open sources and methods that an OSA On the basis of Mandate for Change books from could provide to the USG as well as to multinational the past five Presidential campaigns in the USA, I parties and to our own schoolhouses and Chambers identified twelve “core” policies that must be of Commerce, it is possible to do the following: managed in both a Whole of Government and an M4IS2 manner, with open information-sharing and Inform all contractors that the USG will not be sense-making across all boundaries. exercising any option years on any contract. In this context, secrecy can be no more than 10% Carry out a baseline review of government of the total decision-support outputs, and in my personnel needs with special attention to all view, what we spend on secret sources and methods those responsibilities that are inherently (the inputs) should be no more than 50% at best, governmental and should not be out-sourced and perhaps at little as 30%, of what we spend on national intelligence (decision-support) overall. Direct hire any and all individual contractors whose individual services merit continuation. Today we spend less than 1% of the $65 billion a year in the national and military intelligence budget I won’t be holding my breath, because President on OSINT, and our very expensive secret sources and Barack Obama and VP Joe Biden appear to have methods produce, “at best,” 4% of any top been captured by forces beyond their control. I
- 9. knew in October 2008 that the solution to the loss of orchestrate spending by others against the ten high- integrity by both Wall Street and Congress and prior level threats and across the twelve policy areas. Presidents lay in three simple steps: There is one other vital element of the Strategic By law, freeze all foreclosures and evictions Analytic Model: its recognition of the major demographic powers that will shape the future. Cap all interest rates at 10% for two years Nothing the USA or the European Union (EU) do Insure every individual citizen with county, state, will matter to the future with one magnificent and local boards of appeal and renegotiation. exception: we can create a World Brain and an EarthGame™ such that these eight demographic Similarly, I anticipate that this Administration is powers are able to understand and appreciate the so beset by current challenges as to be unable to “true costs” of every product and service, and be devise a national strategy or national security moved to redirect capitalism from the billion rich to campaign plan that the responsibility for doing so the five billion poor as the same time that they must fall to the one Secretary with sufficient power, create a capacity to educate the five billion poor both soft and hard, to seize the initiative and deliver “one cell call at a time.” to the President a thoughtful plan for the 21 st Century. The World Brain is being held back by Amazon, CISCO, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and I therefore place my confidence in the Secretary others who refuse to respect the inevitable power of of Defense (SecDef). As a long-standing intelligence Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS). We lack a professional with a penchant for strategic analysis, universal analytic toolkit—although I have enormous and backed up by Jim Clapper, arguably the only respect for TOOZL from STRONG ANGEL as funded person now serving who has a complete grasp of all by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency aspects of technical and human and multinational (DARPA) because these corporations—the Exxons intelligence, I look to Dr. Robert Gates for a “break and Enrons of the digital age—believe they have a out” in the form of an OSA that would in turn fund: right to “own” cyberspace and create toll plazas at every turn. We are long over-due for server-routers National Strategy Center under the direction of that allow individual creators of intellectual property General Tony Zinni, USMC (Ret) to control their own content, and we must end the Multinational Decision Support Center under the predatory corporate control of copyright such that direction of the Danish Admiral that served as Google is claiming is “owns” all works not claimed by the senior non-US officer in the Coalition “Dead Souls.” Coordination Center The World Brain will emerge with time, perhaps one town or county at a time. We are already seeing UN Office of the Assistant Secretary General for “home rule” movements that force corporations to Decision Support (ASG/DS), nominating MajGen waive their limited liability, and restore the rights of Patrick Cammaert, RN NL (Ret), the sole UN the public in all respects. leader committed to Peace Intelligence these past ten years, as the first incumbent. The EarthGame™ is the offering of Medard Gabel, co-creator with Buckminster Fuller of the analog Office of Information-Sharing Treaties and World Game. It can be built as a hub for all others, Agreements led by a US Ambassador double- with F/OSS, for no more than $2 million a year. I find hatted as the Deputy ASG/DS. it shocking that organizations such as the Skoll It is upon such a foundation of global knowledge, Foundation will put $100 million in grants against the bulk of it open in nature and benefitting from “projects” while ignoring the huge influence on up to multinational historical, cultural, and contemporary $1 trillion a year that a simple EarthGame™ would understanding, what the USA can make sound offer to all individuals and organizations at all levels. decisions about its Force Structure while also Below I illustrate the integrated concept for establishing international agreements that putting the public—and their elected and appointed officials—in touch with all information in all
- 10. languages all the time, thus assuring that “true costs” of all factors, and links across all policies in all domains, are visualized and appreciated in a fully Cost of Goods 101 transparent and thus accountable manner. The below figure, extracted from a forthcoming book by Medard Gabel, soon to be free online, Seven Billion Billionaires, has been rigorously researched and in my view presents the SecDef with a compelling reason for completely re-inventing national security & national competitiveness in the 21st Century. When I reflect on what we have spent on the Iraq War, and what two successive Presidents have committed in the form of Wall Street bail-outs, I cringe. The public must no longer accept Presidential and Congressional decisions “in our name” that are uninformed, spendthrift, and often against the public interest. There are actually three influence points within our national budget that are now “out of control.” Figure 6: World Brain with Embedded EarthGame™ There is no control of waste or over-charging. More detailed information including a more There is no provision made for Whole of complex version of the above is provided at Earth Government operations including strategic and Intelligence Network (www.earth-intelligence.net). operational decision-support We the People are very close to being able to Finally, there is no institutionalized means for discover, discriminate, distil, and discourse over our the USG to steer rather than row, to influence own decision-support across all policy domains. how others spend up to $1 trillion a year.
- 11. The Force Structure 2. Whole of Government strategy inclusive of peaceful preventive measures, unilateral covert I and many others have known for decades that it action, and fully-funded diplomacy, development, takes two to five years for a Big War force to learn and domestic capacity. how to fight a Small War or a counter-insurgency, and that once they learn, they cannot be asked to do 3. Multinational Regional Campaign Plans a Big War. It was on this basis that I realized in the inclusive of information-sharing, sense-making, and mid-1990’s that we needed Four Forces After Next, covert action as well as counterintelligence. We not one. My visualization of that need is provided in must rely on each military to serve as a “hub” for Figure 2 on the third page of this article. their own “eight tribes” (government, military, law enforcement, academia, business, media, NGO, and In 2008 the Army Strategy Conference triggered a civil society including labor unions and religions) that new appreciation for the reality that “Force must be respected as full partners in establishing Structure” is a term that must be applied to Whole peace and prosperity. of Government, not just DoD. For the U.S. military, based on my decades of I will not replay here all of the arguments made strategic review, I have a few suggestions. so well by others with respect to defense waste and mismanagement. SecDef could be the Robert 1. Create four “type” Commanders-in-Chief McNamara of our era in stature, but actually his anti- (CINC), one each for Big War, Small War, Peace, and thesis in effect—the first modern SecDef to actually Homeland Defense. Give them the acquisition drive the train instead of just ride in the caboose. authority they need to achieve truly joint capabilities. Irregular Warfare (IRWF) is in my view a fraud right now. To take the U.S. Navy, for example, 2. Convert the regional Combatant Commanders instead of being able to focus on Somali pirates and (COCOM) into Regional Coalition Coordination eradicate them, something I called for in a report for Centers (RCCC) with a severe draw-down in U.S. the U.S. Central Command (USSOCOM) written in military staff offset by an equally robust 2005, they have made their entire IRWF Top Secret augmentation of both U.S. inter-agency personnel CODEWORD, and my understanding from open and coalition personnel, striving to invite key sources of information is that they are making a countries to provide inter-agency liaison teams. desperate attempt to find new “irregular” things to 3. Re-direct the services in strategic terms. pump out of the five-foot-wide torpedo tubes of the Below are single illustrative examples, many others SSGN (Ship Submersible Guided-Missile Nuclear). are both available and in need of public discourse. My sense of the challenges facing us suggest that U.S. Air Force: Create a long-haul Air Force acquisition reform is the least of our problems. capable of two Berlin Airlifts, one with organic air SecDef must identify and empower flag officers and and one with commercial air. Commander’s intent: senior executive service civilians with big broad to close all U.S. military bases overseas. minds able to comprehend a world in which the U.S. military is an enabler for multinational inter-agency U.S. Navy: Create the 450-ship small dispersed operations, not the warfighting “decider.” Navy called for in 1992, including the Peace from the Sea Fleet. Commander’s intent: to land a platoon of If we start now, we might have a solid cadre in Marines with a Cobra overhead anywhere in 24 place by 2012, in time to educate the incoming hours, a company with Harriers in 48 hours, and a Administration and Congress. Battalion Landing Team with organic air and ground I think of Force Structure as follows: transport in 72 hours, ready for war or peace. 1. Education, Intelligence & Research. If these U.S. Army: Separate into three major commands: are fragmented and lacking in strategic coherence, Heavy, Medium, and Light. Train, equip, and no amount of SecDef leadership is going to change organize accordingly. Take close air support over the raw fact that he will be working with parochial from the Air Force, coordinating the expanded Army mind-sets unwitting of global reality as I have come Air Corps with Marine Aviation and allied powers. to understand it.
- 12. U.S. Marines: Adopt the Regimental system and Below is a notional distribution of a 450-ship demand regional language fluency for all officers and Navy that could be achieved at a fraction of the cost staff non-commissioned officers. Engage the U.S. of the now planned “big Navy” that will always be Army Civil Affairs Brigade and develop regional four to six days steaming distance from anywhere mixed and coalition units that can keep a company that matters. Peace from the Sea and a long-haul Air each of intelligence, military police, medical, civil Force and a real commitment to transition forces engineering, and air-ground logistics support (Civil Affairs Reinforced, Whole of Government deployed at all times, with at least one officer-led operations) as well as multinational campaign plans squad at each point of concern across each region. will make SecDef a pivotal figure in history. Figure 8: Global Presence from the Sea, Eliminating Most if not All Land Bases The cost of our 750+ land bases, including Signals and operations both by Whole of Government, and Intelligence (SIGINT) collection points, has become by multinational alliances of governments, unaffordable, not just in financial and personnel corporations, non-government organizations (NGO), terms, but in political and cultural terms. and civil society—in other words, use DoD-funded The time has come for DoD to be the linch pin for OSINT and multinational sense-making to influence a re-invention of national security and national how all eight tribes spend up to $1 trillion a year in prosperity, beginning with a re-invention of how eradicating the ten high-level threats to humanity. DoD does education, intelligence, and research, and We still need spies and secrecy, battleships and then of how DoD is organized “for the good of the brigades, but we need coherent strategy and group,” which is to say, to enable strategy, planning, harmonized international spending more.
- 13. Failure of the War Paradigm The war paradigm has failed amidst the failure of Below I illustrate the old and new paradigms. many other industrial-era paradigms. We live in a The bottom line is clear: we can no longer deny time of paradigm failures as organizations have the value-added of thinkers and healers in place of failed to adapt to change and the cost of ineptitude some of the shooters. Lest my opinion be doubted, has risen. Changes to the Earth that used to take one has only to look at company commanders in 10,000 years now take three years. We can no Afghanistan, who are creating company-level longer afford industrial-era thinking or industrial-era intelligence shops by pulling every shooter with a organization. high IQ—the company commanders are doing this because it works!6 Generations of War & Information would influence the behavior and spending of In this final section, I will review the six others. There are a number of Army thinkers that I generations of war, the seven generations of have really admired, among them Col Dr. Max Information Operations (IO), illustrate how a Manwaring, USA (Ret). The below table is his, Regional Multinational Decision-Support Center distinguishing among the first six generations of (MDSC) might be organized, and conclude with a warfare, as presented to the international visualization of how a Global Range of Needs Table conference on “Creating the Global Multi-Cultural GENERATION CHARACTERISTIC Intelligence Web” OBJECTIVE NATURE ` in September 2003. First Low Tech Attrition Second Relatively Higher Tech Attrition and/or Maneuver Third Movement from Hard to Soft Power Shift from Force to Brain Power Fourth Non-State Threats Asymmetry Fifth Information and High Tech Knowledge & Tech-Based Organization Oriented Sixth Mid-Tech Revolution Bio-Informational Figure 10: Six Generations of Warfare
- 14. By now, and in the aftermath of the collapse of As an intelligence professional, I am forced to the Soviet Empire, the American Empire should have conclude that the fault lies with intelligence that has made its own adjustments and moved beyond its failed to educate, rather than with the policy, traditional second generation warfare, beyond the acquisition, and operational leaders who did the fourth generation warfare that many of us discussed best they could within the limits of their individual in the 1990’s, and be well on its way into sixth education, our mediocre intelligence, and a research generation warfare in which IO, all information in all community addicted to government specifications languages all the time, is the dominant factor for and cost-plus contracting. planning and execution of multinational operations I have spent fifteen years developing the “new spanning all functionalities and organizations.. craft of intelligence,” to little effect here in the USA, That is of course not the case. The services are but I believe we are now at a tipping point. As I still trying to build bigger but fewer systems with learned from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D- very high maintenance and logistics foot-prints; we NY), it takes 25 years to move the beast. The good are still unable to deal efficiently with single news is that the first 20 years, while relative flat, do individual actors operating asymmetrically; and we set the stage for the final five years of change, which have not made the leap into Whole of Government occurs at a vertical rate. The last five years began on or Multinational Multifunctional Operations (MMO). 31 March 2009 in Sundval, Sweden. Figure 11: Radical Shift Needed in IO, Toward All Information in All Languages All the Time The reality is that no policy-maker, no acquisition SecDef today is uniquely capable of leading a program manager, and no operational commander is bottom-up review, not just of our military needs for actually concerned with the inherent ignorance that decision-support, but also for our Whole of comes with their job. They have gotten by on grit Government needs. He can then flip that and look and charm and energy, and never really been held directly into the possibilities, the extraordinary accountable for results. opportunities, of multinational IO.
- 15. The Big Picture Below is my final “big picture” slide, but I would be remiss if I did not point to four other analytic aids Having reflected on the need for intelligence that I have developed elsewhere. reform for over fifteen years now, across multiple books and other writings, I come down to a basic Strategic Intelligence demands the integration of principle of military operations, the need for a sciences without ideology, humanities without “shared view of the battlefield.” hate, and faith without fundamentalism. This is where intelligence has failed, and this is Operational intelligence demands the where we need to take our policy, acquisition, and integration of political-legal, socio-economic, operational leaders: toward a shared view of the ideo-cultural, techno-demographic, and natural total battlefield, and consequently toward an geographic factors, not only military factors. inherent ability to harmonize—to achieve unity of effort—across all domains and all boundaries. Tactical intelligence must integrate both law enforcement and civil governance from day one. Figure 12: The Whole of Government Intelligence Playing Field I believe the time has come for SecDef to show our new President that intelligence-driven policy, Congressionally-sanctioned irresponsible practices, intelligence-driven acquisition, and intelligence- and set the stage for harnessing the distributed driven operations—both Whole of Government and intelligence—the Collective Intelligence—of the Multinational, will rapidly empower the Whole Earth, beginning with our own population. By Administration, ameliorate the damage done by the funding the OSA, SecDef can assure the President of Democratic-Wall Street mafia intent on preserving both total information awareness, and influence the status quo ante financial system with its
- 16. over $1 trillion a year in spending by others— too much public blood, public treasure, and public governments, organizations, and individuals. spirit seeking to impose our will on others at the end of a weapon. I am satisfied by books such as The Global Range of Needs Table Table that I illustrate below. I offer two examples as I share with many others the grave concern over concise illustrations of the power of this device. the efficacy of the UN, but I also believe that we lack anything better and that the UN can be made very INDIVIDUALS: Tourist reports need for spare effective if we implement the recommendations of part for 1950’s Rumanian water pump in Kenya. the Brahimi Report, address the decision-support Rumanian engineer volunteers part; German deficiencies identified by then Deputy Secretary doctor pays for FedEx; NGO volunteer accepts General Louise Frechette (formerly Deputy Minister delivery and takes to individual needing the part. of Defence of Canada), and create the Office of the ASG/DS. ORGANIZATIONS: East Timor (Timor-Leste) invites all governments and corporations and The latter office matters because it is the office NGOs to voluntarily orchestrate their financial that could present, both at an annual conference and social investments using the Needs Table. and as a living document, the Global Range of Needs This results in previously unattainable coordination among 120 major organizations. Figure 13: The Acme of Skill is to Substitute Information for Time, Space, Capital, Labor, and Violence I believe this is what Sun Tzu had in mind when he spoke of the acme of skill being the ability to Fifty-Year Wound by Derek Leebaert, Unconquerable defeat the enemy without fighting. We have spent World by Jonathan Schell, and many others from all
- 17. political points of view: we have failed to create a prosperous world at peace using force, now we have to scramble to help Brazil, China, India and other do so without force. We start by funding the OSA. St.
- 18. Endnotes
- 19. 1 A summary was published as “The Asymmetric Threat: Listening to the Debate,” Joint Force Quarterly (Winter 1998- 1999), available in full text online. 2 The notes and summary, and other materials going into a book on Peace Intelligence, are at www.oss.net/Peace. 3 I copied these words by hand at the time. 4 See Transitions to and From Hostilities (Defense Science Board, December 2004). 5 This is as suggested by Barbara Marx Hubbard, (the other candidate for VP at the 1984 Democratic Convention. 6 As described in Intelligence Operations and Metrics in Iraq and Afghanistan (RAND, November 2008).