Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released today a report that critically examines the relevance of the U.S. intelligence community to the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan titled Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan. The authors, including Major General Michael T. Flynn, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence in Afghanistan, argue that the United States' 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.

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released today a report that critically examines the relevance of the U.S. intelligence community to the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan titled Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant 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: "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."

Fixing Intel 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.
 
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.

Download the full report here.
 
Fixing Intel is released under the CNAS Voices from the Field project, which provides members of the military and civilian agencies a platform to speak and write about their field experiences and offer best practices to inform the policy debate in Washington and the broader national security community.

All three authors may be reached via email: michael.t.flynn@afghan.swa.army.mil, matthew.f.pottinger@afghan.swa.army.mil, and paul.d.batchelor@afghan.swa.army.mil.

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The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) is an independent and nonpartisan research institution that develops strong, pragmatic and principled national security and defense policies that promote and protect American interests and values. CNAS leads efforts to help inform and prepare the national security leaders of today and tomorrow.