The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of Us Warfare by James F. Dunnigan
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Dirty Little Secrets
Turning Analysts Into Detectives
by James Dunnigan
April 27, 2005
Discussion Board on this DLS topic
The U.S. Army is changing it’s intelligence collecting
methods, and behaving more like a police precinct. In the old days, troops
collected useful intelligence information and passed it back to analysts, who
studied it, and, if they found anything useful, passed that analyses back to the
troops, who took action. Increasingly, the operation is more like a police
operations. That is, the intelligence analysts get out in the field with the
troops and act more like detectives, collecting their own evidence. Of course,
detectives also depend on street police to provide information as well. Indeed,
it’s the street cop that usually gets to the scene of a crime before the
detectives. Police are trained to carefully examine a crime scene, preserving it
for the detectives, while recording key information that is perishable. Military
intelligence troops have found that the “detective” model is much more
effective. It’s also more dangerous, putting intel people into combat
situations. But the payoff has been enormous. Not only is more information
collected, and analyzed, more quickly, but the troops have more confidence in
the intel people, and are more willing to pass on what they see. The intel units
have also been recruiting, and training, troops in the combat units to look for
information, and get it back to the intel people as quickly as possible. To help
this along, new intel “appliances” (software for laptops, or special PDAs) are
being provided to make it easier for the leaders of infantry patrols to
instantly record useful information, and get it transmitted to an intelligence
unit. Special intelligence units have also been set up that operate pretty much
like a detective squad, living with the troops, and collecting and analyzing
battlefield information in order to provide the combat guys with more useful
information on what the enemy is up to, and where they are hanging out. Using
these mobile teams, and better communications, military intelligence operations
are changing more than they have for several generations.
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