Intelligence Community Current Position

Introduction

Following Sun Tzu’s famous dictum, we are introduced to a practical means of implementing it. It sounds much like fourth generation warfare or even like hybrid warfare: Be wherever the enemy does not expect you to be, do whatever the enemy does not think you will do and portray yourself as something you are not. As important as deception is, then, it is remarkable that we must wait until the end of his book to find out how to deal with an opponent who is following the same advice: spy on them. Sun Tzu believes that spying (and by proxy, one supposes, intelligence) is an essential part of warfare. His rationale is quite clear and, like so much of Sun Tzu’s writing, feels fresh and universal: spying saves resources¹.

The costs associated with spying in the modern era are enormous. The 2009 ‘official’ budget for the National Intelligence Program of the United States was just shy of $50 Billion². Is this still a justifiable cost? Sun Tzu suggests it may be, especially when compared to other alternatives such as aimlessly burning resources, and, ultimately, defeat. If “All war is based on deception”, as master Sun would have us believe, it follows that to practice war there must be secrets. In the modern battlefield the notion of secrecy is under siege and in many ways rightfully so. Clinging too closely to secrecy has not always engendered positive results and could well lead the United States, and her allies, right back to the ruination that they have been trying to avoid.

Little research has been done in addressing the growing capabilities of private internet-based entities in areas traditionally considered “secret intelligence”. Companies such as Google are now developing sensor capabilities, which, twenty years ago, would have been the exclusive privilege of governments. These companies have developed automated exploitation capabilities that governments never envisioned.

This paper attempts to fill in the gaps in the current literature. The paper also attempts to predict the direction of this trend and what affect it will have on the intelligence community. Finally, it suggests ways in which the overall intelligence community can become more effective by embracing the open analytical community. The author does not suggest the abandonment of secrets but feels that their importance will be reduced over time as civilian technologies become ever more sophisticated and find their way into the hands of individuals, ultimately eroding their very reason for existing.How We Got Here

The 1990’s seem to have been an era of exceptionalism in the zeitgeist of international affairs. The collapse of the Soviet bloc coupled with the rapid destruction of Iraq, (one of the Soviet’s most valued client states) suggests not only a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) but also the “end of history” altogether.

The concept of RMA is best defined by Thomas Kearney and Eliot Cohen, two of the oldest proponents of it: “a quantum changes in the means of waging war and its outcome, such that the very face of battle—its lethality, pace, and geographical scope —is transformed. In most cases, a revolution in war involves the rise of new warrior elites, new forms of organization and new dominant weapons”³

Such were the circumstances following the end of Operation Desert Storm/Shield. Iraq had previously defeated Iran; one of the Middle East’s best trained, best equipped, and best staffed militaries. Iran was still feeding off the ample stockpile of equipment sold to the Shah by the West, and retained many Western trained personnel, especially the Air Force⁴. At the same time, Iraq, as a Soviet Union client state, mirrored the Soviets in both equipment and tactics. Thus Iraq, empowered during the 1980’s by the Soviet military, defeated a circa 1978 Western military. It took the better part of a decade to so. The fact that it took the Western ‘coalition’ only a few months to thoroughly defeat the same military that had just defeated Iran strongly suggests a RMA occurred.

An alternative to the “revolutionary” viewpoint about warfare has been a “generational” vision. Because 9/11 proved that indeed, there was no end to history, that religion really did still matter a great deal, and that technology was only as good as the flawed people who used and designed it, the generational view of warfare was much less “exceptional” in its outlook. Refined about a decade after the concept of RMA really took hold, it conceived of the conflicts of 2004 as Fourth Generation (4GW) and defined them this way: “… [4GW] uses all available networks—political, economic, social, and military—to convince the enemy’s political decision makers that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit. It is an evolved form of insurgency”⁵ It too is on the way out, however. Having been with us for “seventy years”⁶ something new maybe underfoot: the fifth generation of warfare (5GW)⁷ where super-empowered individuals, or more likely, micro-cells, are able to project themselves on the state, causing massive damage. This may well be the wave of the future: “In the UK’s view, al-Qaeda is likely to fragment and may not survive in its current form”. Instead, smaller, “self-starter groups” will likely grow stronger and more prominent.”⁸

While the debate between the two camps has at times been acrimonious, there is a consensus between them that, whatever they thought of warfare during the 1990’s, something very different is happening now. Frank Hoffman, perhaps to the annoyance of traditional RMA thinkers,⁹ has labeled the new RMA as “Complex Irregular Warfare”.¹⁰ T.X. Hammes, while giving short shrift to technology in the hands of the military,¹¹ acknowledges the potentially devastating use of new technology in the hands of individuals and insurgents.¹² The emerging security environment, whether regarded as 5GW or another RMA, is a reflection of the current civilian culture. Eliot Cohen indicated that societal change is at the heart of past ‘big changes’ and this one will be no different: “[the RMA] will be shaped by powerful forces emanating from beyond the domain of warfare”.¹³

What are the societal changes, which potentially impact the next ‘big change’? They form the basis for creating the media innovations in the future. Hoffman likens the new availability of media tools to the widest possible public to the French levée en masse. “Democratization of communications reduced costs and greater”, and ever more skilful manipulation of images which “create or reinforce a particular ideology or narrative” all, in Hoffman’s view, affect “why and how people will fight”. Our adversaries, he suggests, are developing vastly novel ways to “acquire and disseminate strategic intelligence, recruit, rehearse, and promote their cause”¹⁴

Politics

One flaw with both Generational and Revolutionary interpretations of warfare is that their proponents allow little space for politics, which is ultimately the reason why wars are fought. This may also be the reason it is so hard to determine whether a ‘big change’ (either ‘revolutionary’ or ‘generational’) has occurred. Instead of just exerting military impact, a meaningful understanding might look something like this: When one power defeats another in an overwhelming manner, other influential powers are forced to make a political choice:

1. Accept an alliance with the winning power
2. Quickly copy the winning power
3. Forge an alliance with a power that copied the winning power
4. Create your own ‘big change’.

The issue here is not the recognition of the alliance. The alliance can be overt or secret, implied or unambiguous; it makes little difference.

In the past each passing ‘big change’ required more expenditure and an increasing reliance on the nation’s industrial and technological base.¹⁵ These technologies are intimately connected to the zeitgeist and prevailing technologies of the time. Such connections are visible during the Napoleonic era¹⁶, when national awakening resulted in nationalist armies¹⁷ or in the Industrial Revolution, which created railroad-mounted mobile forces.

The ‘Big Change’ Evolves

‘Big changes’ of the past are like pyramids with every more recent, more specialized level built atop a larger, older foundation. For example in order to become a full participant in the last ‘big change’, C4ISR, one also had to have the ability to wage strategic nuclear war. The last two RMAs have witnessed considerable decrease in the numbers of full time participants. The nuclear RMA has so far had only seven participants up to the present. Because of their destructive power, nuclear weapons are unlikely to be actually used even in supposedly ‘unstable’ situations such as the ones that prevail between Israel and Iran, one of which apparently possesses the requisites, and the other of which is straining every nerve to acquire nuclear capability¹⁸.

New tactics have always been needed to counter threats and minimize casualties, but simultaneously avoid predestining nuclear war. While others may have taken part in the C4ISR change, only the United States has thus far been willing to absorb the full range of expenses required to implement fully the now common list of required improvements¹⁹. These include GPS, advanced communications, precision guided munitions, and advanced sensors and stealth technology. At the end of Operation Desert Storm/Shield, only the United States retained all the necessary assets to be regarded as a superpower.

The new ‘big change’ is a byproduct of the competitive adaptation process. Competitive adaptation is organizational learning not “in isolation but within complex adaptive systems, where both sets of imperfectly informed, interdependent players gather and analyze information to change practices and outmaneuver their opponents…Theses interactions are fundamentally dynamic. Players who fail to respond quickly to adverse circumstances…do not perform particularly well…”²⁰ Michael Kenney’s definition is fine-tuned to the interaction of law enforcement with narcotics traffickers and with security forces and terrorists. Nonetheless, it gives us a major insight about the history of warfare: how we got to this point, and where we go from here.

Intelligence forms the fundamental basis for executing such processes. This is because “intelligence, at its core is less about getting the facts right or wrong than providing competitive advantage in foresight and situational awareness to decision makers”²¹ Intelligence forms a crucial grounding for responses at the right moment, without waste of time. Sims has rightly asserted in this regard that, “in an environment marked by the rapid appearance and disappearance of issues or targets; by a relatively finite range of target states but virtually infinite set of real or potential target groups; and by extraordinary volatility in our technical environment; the only measure that counts is how well US intelligence aligns itself with the world beyond its walls”. ²²

The new ‘big change’ is a total reversal of this paradigm. Kundnani has pointed out that the war on terror’s underlying premise differs from the cold war’s dependence on the symmetry of mutual knowledge and fear between two super-powers”. Instead, according to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, writing in 2002, our antagonist is now ‘the unknown, the uncertain, the unseen, and the unexpected.’ Kundnani notes that, now, being the “strongest is not enough”. Asymmetric warfare, he suggests, forces us to look on military power “as itself a kind of vulnerability.”²³ :

Stateless organizations using commercialized near-military-grade equipment (GPS, Internet, satellite and cellular communication), along with the element of surprise, can realistically contemplate a time when they might achieve their strategic objectives. Brimley has held that “the post-Cold War era has been defined by the increase in connectivity and linkages between states and among societies. Conveniences such as the internet, instant banking, cheap travel, and mobile phones greatly increase the global reach of terrorist organizations”.²⁴ The new reality that al Qaeda operates in a uniquely enabling global environment is reinforced both by its deeds and, most especially, by its means.²⁵

Rather than one power, which can call all the shots via extremely expensive technology, weapons and manpower, we have a new enemy who treats all these things as mere commodities. Its main traits are that it is economical, decentralized, and fluid. Such attacks range from being very sophisticated to remarkably simple, The perpetrators themselves vary widely (the technology is getting easier to use, and narrows the gap for those with less sophistication–and good sense); the attackers range from the self-radicalized, to people who have passed through the training process of the traditional camp structures. The only standard tactic seems to be novelty.

Whether one uses terms like convergence, netwar, or fourth-generation warfare to describe the systemic characteristics of transnational terror or insurgent groups, the underlying propositions are quite similar–namely that networked organizations are used both to create capabilities and to exploit an enemy’s vulnerabilities. In both the virtual and real worlds, networked support mechanisms are crucial to the success of transnational movements.²⁶ While it is Islamic and Narco-terrorists who are the vanguard for this new terror, the very openness and “cheapness” of such strikes, and the circumstances surrounding them ensure that virtually all players have a turn at bat.

Following the paradigm of competitive adaption to its logical conclusion, the Unites States, too, will likely respond in one of the ways outlined above — likely, it will choose to quickly emulate the general model of the terrorists, decentralizing some of its personnel and apparatus, while retaining centralized control of other parts of itself. The monopolies the state has on both legal intelligence and on legal violence, once core elements of the state’s rational to exist, will still be central to these efforts.

This will be so at least for the United States. It might not be so for other states, which must choose between eternal violence and allegiance to a distant ally. Under these circumstances, such a nation may well choose to ally themselves with terrorists. Some European and Asian nations may face internal demographic shifts, which force them into a de facto alliance with terrorists by simply choosing to do nothing. How will a country choose to act, after all, when a substantial proportion of its economically productive population is in religious and ideological sympathy with anti-Western aims?

The Intelligence Community has some Problems!

Problem: Openly available Intelligence keeps getting better

A clandestine organization must be able to collect information and keep track of activities, which bear on its objectives and future. Global terrorism in the present environment has created complexities for law enforcement and intelligence organizations. Although geographical location is, still, an important determinant in terms of the hardship faced in locating people like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri amidst the arid and difficult mountain regions of the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistani, the globalization process has shaped an entirely new and thorny topography of the heart and mind. Terrorists exploit this to their advantage²⁷.

The state no longer has the near-monopoly or intelligence as it once had. Civilian technology is evolving rapidly and eroding the state’s ability to keep up and cope with challenging security issues. Commoditization of technology is resulting in “civilian” equipment (superior to military equipment of even a decade ago) being sold at extremely low cost, which in turn is greatly increasing the number of people who could benefit from the experience of, for example, Iraqi fighters. “The basic technology trends behind the current Information Revolution can be summarized as in three phases: growing capabilities, falling costs and greater connectivity”²⁸ This results in what John Robb calls “open source warfare”²⁹ where independent or semi-independent “super-empower[ed]”³⁰actors can use the internet and other technologies to make attacks which were once the domain of well-organized terrorist organizations. The trend is not looking good for the establishment. The speed at which information is collected and processed; even our ability to distinguish collection, processing, and analysis as distinct phases of an information cycle; and the speed of decision-making, are all increasing rapidly.³¹ Writing from the vantage point of the traditional press, Nick Gowing points out that “Overall, this surge of civilian information is having an asymmetric negative impact on the traditional structures of power”³². This is as true for the intelligence community as it is for the press, or for that matter, any other institution.

The state once had sole access and control of satellite images, and the sole legal authority (to say nothing of technical ability) to break secure communication links. Yet recently there have been indications of a shift in technically derived intelligence. The U.S., long the master of TECHINT (technically derived intelligence), faces a challenge, not from other nation-states but from a combination of private industries and foes who are willing to use ruthlessness and surprise. Terrorists can now manipulate commercially available satellite imagery³³ in ways Kennedy could hardly have dreamed of during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is only the inception of a coming equalization in TECHINT between the state and openly available sources. For instance, both HAMAS uses Google Earth³⁴ and NATO for imagery. Twenty years ago, the notion that the United States and Soviet Union would use the same systems and technology to spy on one another would have been unthinkable. Innovative technologies from Google and others would have been considered highly classified projects two decades ago: capturing logs from WiFi networks³⁵ is nothing more than SIGINT (signals intelligence), for example. Nor do governments retain a monopoly on secure communications: the FBI, for example has recently warned that the use of encryption technology can secure communications of terrorists.³⁶ Other governments have expressed similar concerns with the new Blackberry device.³⁷

Face recognition technology applied to the web³⁸ is another (very novel) form of IMINT (imagery intelligence). The very sophisticated Google Street View is also thoughtfully produced, such that it offers both utility and flexibility. It is notable that there exists no Google street view shot of villages hidden in the Tora Tora Mountains, but there is a clearly identified Google street view shot of what is allegedly SAS HQ in London.³⁹ Jennifer Sims points out that the “deepening and broadening of private sector surveillance, together with its public acceptability [means that] terrorist have at hand a society prewired for their own purpose”.⁴⁰

Despite the contemporary attention given to the Al Qaeda terrorist network, itself of significant size, there are dozens, or perhaps hundreds of “organizations” devoted to terrorist attacks on the United States and its allies.⁴¹ These groups include but are not limited to the dozens of “formal” terrorists groups recognized by the Unites States Department of State. There are numerous and specific examples of terrorists using the latest technology. This is not surprising. Terrorists use the internet in the same fashion as other people do: to send e-mails, to find and share information, to meet and discuss issues with like-minded people, etc.⁴²

Other examples illuminate a long history of technology usage. For example, Laptop computers were crucial to the 1995 OPLAN Bojinka’ (Manila airliner) plot.⁴³ The attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 involved the use of satellite technology, air travel, fax technology, internet access, and other modern conveniences. Terrorists have recently even used Facebook to recruit followers with notable results.⁴⁴ Perhaps the best example of this accelerating trend is the 2008 Mumbai attack whereby the perpetrators had prepared for the attack by consulting Google Earth, used Satellite telephones, and consulted GPS receivers to plot escape paths and navigate by boat. They then used 3G blackberry phones to monitor the media live and thus “counter law enforcement and military efforts to contain and control the movements of the attackers”^45,46.

Not only does the 21st-century global system create operational benefits, but it has also changed the strategic environment in ways amenable to transnational groups like al Qaeda. “A range of activities from terrorism to computer hacking are thus redefined as a new style of warfare, rather than criminal or political acts. Actions, which would not previously have been considered as warfare at all, are now considered direct challenges to US supremacy….^”47 This is, of course, entirely true. The most troubling element of ‘the new warfare is how much of it is just ‘people doing stuff’, either entirely legal or illegal, in such a way that individually it constitutes no real threat to the state. As an example, one drug dealer selling Spanish partygoers a line of ‘blow’ would have been reprehensible prior to 9/11. Now, it represents a direct challenge to America’s survival as a nation: it financed a bomb, which changed an election, which undermined an alliance and contributed to the near loss of Iraq.

Indeed, most of what a terrorist does is legal, or at worst, criminal. In some ways, al Qaeda’s transnational network survives by grafting itself onto existing networks that are older and have enjoyed a long history of success.⁴⁸ By using gang, drug, prison, money laundering, and smuggling networks to facilitate everything from recruitment to financing, material procurement to operational support, al Qaeda is able to sustain a horizontal network structure in the absence of a convenient state sanctuary.⁴⁹ But as John Arquilla points out “What’s missing most of all from the U.S. military’s arsenal is a deep understanding of networking, the loose but lively interconnection between people that creates and brings a new kind of collective intelligence, power, and purpose to bear — for good and ill.”⁵⁰

The strategic picture is best visualized as a broad enabling environment, consisting of bad governance, nonexistent social services and unmet expectations, which characterizes much of the developing world⁵¹, with a massive dollop of advanced, extremely cheap technology placed on top. The assumption made by the policy makers that the west will always enjoy an advantage in technological derived intelligence is open to question, or more likely the assumption itself may be irrelevant.

Australia,⁵² Britain,⁵³ Canada⁵⁴ and certainly many other countries are bound to continue investigating and considering measures in attempts to stop Google and others from conducting what is, in essence, intelligence collection. There is no reason to believe that these capabilities themselves will be equally reined in. Similar experiences attempting to impose law on such entities as Napster (a file sharing application, which allowed for the illegal sharing of music), can successfully control a business entity. Such attempts, however, have spawned the creation of the leaderless and highly decentralized eMule⁵⁵. Companies are reined in; their ideas, however, outlive them. In the context of strategic communications, Dr. David Betz has noted that “global Jihad has nothing close to the physical resources of even the smallest Western state. But in the virtual dimension all that power simply does not count for much.”⁵⁶ In the context of intelligence, it may come to mean even less. Two things to remember here are that firstly, in most terrorism the “illegal” part is just the last few bits: the actual attack, or that actual assembly of explosives. Secondly, while that could function to the terrorist’s advantage, it does have one critical advantage for open community detection: all of it is unclassified.

However, informative Google Street View might be, for the vision of 5GW or Complex Irregular Warfare truly to materialize, more is required from the internet. The question arises; is the internet configured such that an individual could take on the state and win? There are ample targets: the United States, in addition to highly populated areas such as office buildings, shopping centers, schools and the like, has a large number of vulnerable targets.⁵⁷ America has ten nuclear production and research sites which require protection⁵⁸. Over 800,000 locations in the United States produce, store, or consume hazardous materials. Most are virtually unprotected from terrorist activities⁵⁹.

Terrorists typically have to reveal themselves only twice in a given operation: first to conduct surveillance and then to execute the plan. In this context, one useful purpose of the internet for a terrorist is to reduce exposure by not having to perform surveillance. In a sense the internet, for what might be termed ‘standard’ terrorist operations, has already achieved this: airline schedules are posted online, for example.

Nevertheless, to conduct a more innovative attack the internet seems to offer only partial answers. According to a 2007 report from RAND, one of the few, if not the only study to comprehensively analyze how much information of US key infrastructure is in fact online. The answer is remarkable but mixed.⁶⁰. The study started with the openly available US Army information requirements, documents and a copy of the ‘Manchester document’, which is the closest thing we have to terrorist “doctrine,” to supply the data needed for an attack. While there was not enough online information to render surveillance redundant, there was certainly enough to reduce it substantially. That trend will likely continue, and perhaps accelerate as more and more ‘normal’ people post individually made pictures and accounts of their experiences on line. Flickr is an example of an entirely innocent site for such postings. Surveillance itself can also be obviated by the internet, since “going online” yields almost any technological gadget to any individual in the world with desire and a valid credit card.

Terrorists can buy the latest weaponry, surveillance, and espionage tools,⁶¹ in near anonymity.⁶² This contrasts with what is available currently to the would-be terrorist in terms of what he must develop for himself: WMD would be necessary for the individual to truly take on the state and win. Of those, the most likely, in the author’s opinion, to achieve the desired aim, would be chemical and bioweapons. Truly useful online information is, currently at least, blessedly scarce. Anne Stenersen describes the available materials as ‘apparitional’. While they are “crude amalgamations of widely available, open-source material”, and are therefore severely limited in the guidance they offer to those interested in weaponising “sophisticated chemical or biological agents”. Although Stenersen acknowledges that the safety and effectiveness of such CBW weapons would be questionable, the very interest in their development reveals “a small and committed network within the online jihadist community”. She encourages their continued analysis “to gauge their efficacy.⁶³

We would be foolish to assume that simply because the moment is not yet here, it is not coming. Such complacency will have dire results. Rather, now is the time for the intelligence community to rethink, prepare for, and to respond to possibilities in a predictive manner.

Problem: The Intelligence community Lacks Analysts with Cultural Acumen and Language Skills

While “the absence of declassified information on the daily performance of intelligence agencies makes the evaluation of intelligence reforms difficult”,⁶⁴ some observations from the author’s experience should shed some light on why the United States has such trouble predicting tomorrow. When the writer, an intelligence professional working for one of the largest American intelligence agencies, looks around his office, he sees many resources, both human and otherwise, but not a single native Arabic speaker. One Muslim graces the department, and a very secular fellow he is.

Most of my colleagues are military veterans. A few have very grey hair, have retired more than once, from the military, then the government, and now work as defence contractors, but seem to have never really left this place, much less this community. Few of them are uniquely educated, though some are uniquely experienced. No one here at the author’s agency experiences their own religion majestically or mystically. It is therefore hard for them to understand why anyone would see something majestic or mystic in something, or anything; it all seems plainly irrational. For people of this scientific, secular, and humanistic background, understanding disparate motivations is a huge challenge. “Some insurgents do not seek clearly defined political objectives or attainable goals. Some do not even seek the overthrow of an existing regime or control of a state’s ability to govern. For these groups and individuals, the act of participating in the jihad is enough.”⁶⁵

Rather, analysts are primarily selected not for their willingness to master colloquial variants of “useful languages”, or understand the mindset of the Imam of a Cairo mosque, but for their fluency in the intelligence community’s linguistic style, which we might term “staff”. This means being short, to the point, and clear beyond nuance. To do this and still remain accurate they must report on very small things, such as for instance, the ‘individual moves from here to there’ and then attempt to draw conclusions.

My experiences in this regard cannot be considered to be very exclusive. There are according to the Washington Post 854,000 ⁶⁶ Americans who have Top Secret clearances. That is the first prerequisite for becoming an analyst. Although it cannot be said for sure that most analysts work on assignments relating to Counter-Terrorism, it is widely understood that most who do were hired post 9/11.⁶⁷, This is evident from the extent of experience required to fulfill such assignments; “half the analysts are relatively inexperienced… Contract analysts are often straight out of college and trained at corporate headquarters.”⁶⁸ It is no wonder that “American strategists and policymakers”⁶⁹, to say nothing of intelligence analysts, confront such challenges in shedding their own unacknowledged and unarticulated cultural precepts.

The language problem is evergreen and was first identified as far back as the 1950’s. Taylor & Goldman make the point well, calling for “An upgrade of IC language skills” to “improve collection as well as analysis.” The 2006 ‘National Security Language Initiative’, undertaken by President Bush, was designed to encourage the learning of “critical need” languages; Arabic, Russian Farsi, Hindi, and Chinese⁷⁰The number of collectors or analysts fluent in a colloquial version of almost any Asian or Middle Eastern language is miniscule.”⁷¹ The Commission indicated that, “our vital interests are impaired by the fatuous notion that our competence in other languages is irrelevant”⁷²

Such assertions are more representative of the United States’ insignificant efforts to develop and encourage the competency of Americans in the languages of North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, instead of making use of individuals who are already there. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found an abysmally low number of skilled people within the reach of American security agencies, who can communicate fluently in languages such as Urdu, Dari and Pashto.⁷³ Taha has reported that “in its 2010 budget report, the Committee warns: ‘Persistent critical shortages in some languages contribute to the loss of intelligence information and affect the ability of the intelligence community to process and exploit what it does collect.”⁷⁴ It has held that “the gap has become critical in the war effort, especially in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater, where al Qaeda and Taliban operatives text message, e-mail, and talk in languages ignored by the intelligence community before 2001”.⁷⁵ Moreover, the interception of radio and phone communication carried out in native languages is crucial to check and monitor the movement of terrorists and the location of their camps in the tribal regions of Pakistan.⁷⁶ Consider the multiplicity of such situations around the world involving, potentially, thousands of regional dialects, which amount to wholly different languages.

The author’s own experience in the southern Philippines is but one example. There, each island population speaks its own ‘dialect’ of Tagalog, each one mutually incomprehensible and wholly different from “standard” Tagalog. Often our host nation allies spoke none of the local dialect. Local islanders spoke six or seven languages, none of them speaking Tagalog. The results were predictable: the host nation military was just as foreign to the area as we were. The army, integrated with the rebels in 1996, was never, in my time there, able to engage with insurgents: they always slipped away just before they arrived. Lack of required results caused the Pilipino southern command to be replaced: the Pilipino Army was replaced by their Marines. The Pilipino Marines had not been integrated with the insurgents. They were, in almost every way a more combat-ready force, and a more trustworthy lot. The results were immediate and tragic. One ambush followed another, and an island, which the government had considered ‘pacified’, came immediately back into play. In the author’s mind the reason for our reversals were clear: from the perspective of the enemy, our host nation allies were just as foreign as we were.

Should the National Security Language initiative remain supported, it will still require a generation to produce a cadre of language speakers. Even then, their classroom skills will be inadequate for the street or countryside, the loci of intelligence gold. In truth, such programs are a good and a strong start. There are numerous economic and social synergies engendered by learning the major languages, and being “fluent in obscure dialects”⁷⁷. However, ultimately, the intelligence community will have to train its own linguists, and/or take a leap of faith and allow more openness. Current intelligence personnel are reluctant to learn languages in part because of the opportunity costs of time and career advancement.⁷⁸The results are staggering: “In 2001 only 20 percent of the graduating class of clandestine case officers was fluent in non-Romance languages. Robert Baer, a veteran CIA clandestine case officer, noted that even after the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, the CIA employed not one case officer who spoke Pashto, the dialect of the major ethnic group in Afghanistan, and still had none as of 2002”⁷⁹. Betts has voiced alternatives in the form of a question: Should U.S. intelligence trust recent, poorly educated immigrants for these jobs if they involve highly sensitive intercepts? How much will it matter if there are errors in translation, or willful mistranslations, which cannot be caught because there are no resources to cross-check the translators?”⁸⁰

As revealed by Popp, Armour, Senator & Numrych some solutions exist through technology and electronic or ‘machine’ translations. These must be considered because:

Foreign language speech and text are indispensable sources of intelligence, but the vast majority is unexamined: Volumes are huge and growing; processing is labor intensive; and the U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism communities have too few people with suitable language skills.⁸¹

This is, and always has been, a tough problem to solve technically. Anyone who has attempted to translate web pages from French into English via either the Google language tool or Babblefish recognizes that the mechanical translation is acceptable only if the alternative is nothing at all. Worse still, the mechanism that Google uses is dependent on logarithms of already translated web pages: Such services “learn by analyzing collections of documents that have been translated by humans”⁸². Thus, by its very nature, the languages for which it functions most effectively are those most widely spoken and translated. In addition, those for which it does worst in are those lacking an alphabet, or those very rarely used online, such as those of rural people in Afghanistan, or Islanders in the southern Philippines. Add to this the multi-lingual, multi-dialectical skills of people in these settings, who switch mid-conversation between languages and dialects, and it is easy to envision those technical solutions will be no panacea either.

Problem: Sharing Intel is tough

By their nature, intelligence agencies are reluctant to share information, and all limit the sharing of information necessary for the fight against terrorism. Cultural differences are part of the problem. For instance, European counter terrorism strategies aim at targeting operating units and ignore supporting organizations.⁸³

One international agency which has been proactive in coordinating international intelligence-sharing efforts has been the United Nations.⁸⁴ The UN has acted by passing a number of resolutions extending and reinforcing the scope of its existing anti-terrorism measures.⁸⁵ In passing Security Council resolution 1373 in September 2001, the United Nations has strengthened international co-operation against terrorism and required states to take action against terrorists and terrorist funding within their jurisdictions, including freezing of their assets.⁸⁶ It has established the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee to act as a monitoring body to ensure that states comply with resolution 1373⁸⁷. In March 2004, it acted to strengthen the committee’s mandate. Under resolution 1390, adopted by the Security Council in January 2002, all states are required to take action against the terrorists listed by another Security Council Committee, ‘the 1267 Committee’.⁸⁸ This committee’s listing process relates to terrorist entities associated with Osama bin Laden, with al-Qaeda, and with the Taliban.⁸⁹ This committee also monitors compliance with the comprehensive travel, financial and arms sanctions that were put in place against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.⁹⁰ Perhaps it should go without saying, but UN resolutions, for all of they are well-meaning, are still totally unenforceable. They are therefore routinely ignored wherever they conflict with perceived national interests.

Another reason for limited information sharing is technological. As Nolte has pointed out, “American security is to maximize, in extent and in duration, our technical advantages, including military technology.” He asserts that such a condition results in “organic imbalances” between the capabilities of the USA, and her allies. Nolte suggests that there comes a point when “gaps of this sort render meaningful coalition operations inefficient or even dangerous.” ⁹¹ While the United States makes huge efforts to share technology and information, there is no getting around the fact that many of America’s partners in the fight against terror simply lack the infrastructure (to say nothing of inclination) to either incorporate the technology or safeguard the information, leaving the United States little choice but to ‘keep it to ourselves’.

Shalamanov, Johnson, and Fay assert that Information Technology, as a field, faces the following challenge: combining and disseminating “sensitive information in a multi-security network to support the right decision makers in a timely manner with trustworthy/dependable information and protect the sources should that be necessary.” Shalamanov, et alia, note that this challenge is exacerbated by the complexities of working with a “continuously changing set of disparate partners” whose bona fides as non-hackers or non-terrorists are uncertain. Shalamanov also sees one of the goals of IT as linking “disparate organizations and many interested, but not necessarily coalition/ allied nations/ groups together to achieve common goals in the ‘war on terrorism’.” Terming this the “ultimate cyber ad hoc network”, Shalamanov observes that the target is unfixed, moving, and resistant to predictive tools, since it is “dependent on the whim of the terrorist”. This is a devilish difficult structure to create and maintain “since there is not a single threat that a coalition or allied group can focus on.”⁹²

Ambivalent responses from the international community only represent part of the problem facing the United States Intelligence community. After 9/11, within the United States, over twenty agencies responsible for intelligence-gathering were forced to combat years of rivalry and fighting over limited funding, to cooperate fully in intelligence-sharing. A key lesson drawn from Congressional and other inquiries into the September 11 intelligence failure is that the government did not exploit the information it had already collected.⁹³

The United States has traditionally drawn distinctions between law enforcement and foreign intelligence, and between agencies operating domestically and those focused overseas.⁹⁴ Sometimes these distinctions have created a perceptual barrier to useful sharing of information and other forms of collaboration among various agencies.⁹⁵ One theme of the 2001 Patriot Act was to break down the barrier between law enforcement and intelligence. There were, in fact, many such barriers built between and within agencies over the past sixty years because of various legal, policies, institutional, and individual factors.⁹⁶ Some barriers were meant to protect individual rights.⁹⁷ Some of the barriers meant to protect legitimate interests were bureaucratically misconstrued to the point that they served neither civil liberties nor national security.⁹⁸

Faced with an increasingly diffuse, open and networked enemy, the answer of the United States was to centralize the intelligence community under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) ostensibly to increase collaboration across the Intelligence Community (IC).⁹⁹ only 30% of managers in the community “Are seeing considerably more collaboration” within their own agency for six years.¹⁰⁰ While information on the matter is sparse, it is safe to assume, generally, that the further an analyst goes from his bureaucratic safety net, the less likely s/he is to collaborate. This means an analyst is most likely to collaborate within his or her own department and least likely to collaborate with foreigners outside the Intelligence community.

The result, as summarized by Meirowitz and Tucker, is predictably that critical available information progresses up through the levels of a hierarchy only if every supervisor makes the choice to send it onward. The casualties of such a system, suggest Meirowitz and Tucker, are the unpopular, the unwelcome, and the disruptive observations or conjectures, no matter how brilliant the synthesis which generated them. Additionally, the staff in upper echelons of an intelligence agency may also be too small in number to allow for diversity of opinion.

Problem: Rubbish information outweighs the gold – finding the good stuff costs; if there is even any gold in them ‘thar’ hills

Going back for a moment to The Art of War, no matter how modern Sun Tzu sounds, there are some things that he could not predict. Modern information technology and technologically based spying is one of them, and this may be the reason why modern readers of The Art of War seem to disregard the last section of the book. It seems out of touch with how spying is done in the modern age. However, here it seems everything old is new again; the contemporary commander should reconsider Sun Tzu’s advice on spying in more than just an abstract concept. Human Intelligence (HUMINT), particularly the ‘human geography’ sort of HUMINT described in paragraph nine¹⁰¹ is central to winning insurgency. Before 9/11, HUMINT was nearly a lost art in the United States, distinctly out of favor compared to technical intelligence¹⁰². The 9/11 Commission Report implies the woeful state of things in naming as its top priority for the CIA the goal to “build its human intelligence capabilities” ¹⁰³ (as if from scratch, an odd aim for an agency supposedly in that business!) This is not to suggest the process will be easy. The problems with obtaining solid HUMINT can be overwhelming, as Kauppi outlines in blunt terms that:

…simply learning a language won’t make a person a native speaker, for another planting a spy in a tribal base society is nearly impossible; the CIA probably doesn’t have a single truly qualified Arabic-speaking officer of Middle Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist who would volunteer to spend years of his life with shitty food and no women in the mountains of Afghanistan.¹⁰⁴

Other options present similar or worse problems: Recruiting an agent may involve getting involved with disreputable people¹⁰⁵ and leaves agencies open to the double cross.¹⁰⁶The final category, “walk-ins” are notoriously unreliable (though not always so¹⁰⁷) and usually concerned with their own financial gain or have alternative motives.¹⁰⁸

Even with all of the problems faced in gathering HUMINT there is still a huge amount of information, most if it irrelevant, which must be processed by people. There is a very real risk that somewhere in that dismissed information is some very important clue that simply was not recognized for what it is. The Central Intelligence Agency, which is the premier HUMINT intelligence-gathering apparatus and analytical intelligence agency of the United States, consists of two major divisions. One, the Operations Directorate (OD) is responsible for gathering intelligence, and the other, the Intelligence Directorate, is responsible for taking the raw data and discerning meaningful information.¹⁰⁹

While numbers are hard to come by, Hitz asserts that “the Intelligence Directorate is much larger than the Operations Directorate (OD)”.¹¹⁰ The CIA has “desks” or departments for each nation of the world. Assuming one could add “desks” for each of the current functioning terrorist organizations, both analysts and field agents for each one would be required.

The pure volume of information gathered is daunting. Between human intelligence (HUMINT-the “take” from spies and operatives), signal intelligence, (SIGINT-interception of radio or cell phone communications), document intelligence (DOMEX, anything ranging from pocket litter taken on the battlefield to cell phone and computer exploitations), and all other forms, each of these desks could easily yield millions of pieces of data that would need to undergo full analysis.¹¹¹ In order for the United States intelligence community to respond to these threats, they would have to deploy a prohibitive number of intelligence analysts and collection specialists.

Despite the huge number of persons in the employ of the CIA and every other intelligence agency, there are not enough people or the budget to go through each and every piece of data. Indeed, that is not really the point. It requires one of the right sort of person, and not 100 or even 1000 of the wrong people. Unfortunately, it would seem that the United States is surely trying that route anyway.

The assessed grand total of solid Al-Qaeda fighters (those who have pledged allegiance to bin Laden personally) rests at about 100.¹¹²The total number of people, working across the Western world on the Al Qaeda portfolio, however, is also difficult to estimate. A very recent Washington Post article suggested that the United States alone has “Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies working on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations”¹¹³Worse still, as we are constantly being told, information on terrorists is ‘sketchy’ or ‘unreliable’ despite there being a huge amount of it¹¹⁴. Indeed the traditional government approach of “more”¹¹⁵ does not seem to make much difference, if it is merely ‘more of the same’:

A fair question however is:

If the U.S. government doubled the number of counterterrorism analysts, would that translate into a 100% improvement in tactical warning? No senior analyst to whom I have posed this question was willing to take the bet. Indeed the consensus was that it is better to have 50 well-trained and exercised analysts than 150 novices. Furthermore it the quality of the collected intelligence does not improve it doesn’t matter how many analysts are looking at it—the resultant product will still lack the targeting specifics that consumers are looking for from the intelligence community.¹¹⁶

Complicating efforts still further is a strong belief in the Intelligence community that the information is out there…somewhere. Moreover, that ‘somewhere’ in question must, it is believed, be hidden, rather than in plain sight. The results of this obsession can be quite amusing: A recent article in Playboy magazine illustrates how different U.S. government departments were bilked, by a man who had supposedly designed a computer program sensed secret messages Al-Qaeda via Al-Jazeera¹¹⁷. The culture of secrecy is so prevalent that these various departments kept the nature of the fraudster under wraps!

This is one of those situations where the United States in particular and the West more generally is unlikely actually to be able to buy its way out, as Taylor and Goldman suggest. They assert, “Certainly money makes some difference up to a point, but the IC passed that point years ago and the history of intelligence suggests that neither size nor money correlate with success”.¹¹⁸ Recent thinking published on the Foreign Affairs website echoes this. It is therein suggested that the risks of terrorism are far overblown that more money spent on countering terrorism is a waste, and the nearly $1 trillion spent already has turned in to a sort of cottage industry a “self-licking ice cream cone”.¹¹⁹

Problem: The tools of the trade are lacking

Currently the Intelligence Community uses a number of manufactured products which are painfully deficient in inter-operability. They impose inefficiencies in the communication of intelligence data to leadership. Perhaps the best example of this is Power Point.¹²⁰ It is not an overstatement, nor even a humorous anecdote to suggest that a staff officer in any command, when given the task of briefing with this tool will devote at least half of his or her time correcting fonts, or animating the titles and transitions.

Even the “mental tools” which analysts use to extract data to create finished product are worrisome. There are too many to list here, but I will use three to give an example of what I mean.

The first is a substantial process called Intelligence Preparation of the Battle space (IPB) which “integrates intelligence analysis with operational planning and command decision-making. It is a structured, continuous four-phase analytical approach to defining the battle space, describing battle space effects, evaluating the adversary and determining courses of action.”¹²¹ Even gifted staff officers note that the process can take a while. It is quite possible to use it to considerable effect against terrorists in a known battlefield, but in situations where the enemy has complete tactical surprise, it is ineffective: first, one needs to know where the battlefield is.

While Terrorists “adopt surprising, asymmetric COA because novelty is what the battle space affords, group capability permits, and stakeholders action demand”¹²²the counterterrorism analyst is comically trapped looking at the opposite of novelty—modeling and trend analysis. There is little nice to say about either, as they are both holdovers from the cold war era, and were not that great even then. Consider Colin Gray’s perspective on the Voodoo of trend analysis, which far too many in the intelligence community feel should be used:

…should give pause to those inclined to indulge in confident prognoses is the notorious unreliability of trend analysis. Even the most accurate identification and analysis of recent and current trends cannot offer a reliable guide to the future. Trends come in bunches, they interact both with each other and with their contexts, and it is their consequences, rather than they themselves, which make the future….There is usually someone who sees the future with uncanny perceptiveness, but, alas, at the time it is impossible to know his or her identity.¹²³

Modeling, which has long been a staple in social science, is also problematic, in part because of the paradox of warning. Cooper has pointed out in this regard, “we need to understand that warning is largely built on modeling (either explicit or implicit) and syntheses, which are deductive processes, and not on analysis, which is an inductive process.”¹²⁴ If your models are correct and your forecasts are reasonably thought out, people will take action on them. In turn, terrorists will likely take notice of those actions, call off the operation, or hit something else. “The paradox is that since nothing happened, you can’t know whether you were correct in your assessment or whether the terrorists never planned to attack the facility in the first place!”¹²⁵

Problem: It is hard to keep a (useful) Secret these days

Even after one wades through all the large number of deficiencies there is a fine issue that needs to be addressed in the modern context of conflict. They come in the form of two paradoxes of secrecy itself:

1. Those forces in a counterinsurgency and counterterrorism that are the most useful are often times those that are most infiltrated by the enemy. Conversely, those forces that are most trustworthy are also the least useful. In essence, if the intent is to fight the enemy with local forces, it is better to count on the idea that the enemy will learn everything you are telling your allies.

It is important to note that a ‘local power’ should not be confused with local jurisdiction. Taking my experience in the Philippines as an example, the ‘local force’ that the United States was advising in a ‘by through and with’ strategy was deeply infiltrated by the enemy. Nevertheless, even if it had not been so, the truth was that the soldiers of the Army of the Philippines were simply more loyal to their communities than they were to the government and would, of course, warn their relatives in advance of any pending attack.

Nor is this problem confined to the Philippines but is also true of Afghanistan, Somalia, or anywhere where loyalties to home, family, ethnicity, or God, matter more than those to the nation.. The worshippers in a London mosque, for example, may have primary loyalties other than to Her Majesty’s Government. The local power, the local “influencer” in this case could quite possibly the imam or another elder. He is, essentially, the individual you need to talk to, as it is possible that jurisdictional civil authorities may be distrusted, or may distrust any intelligence they themselves did not generate.

2. There exists a huge (and widening) asymmetry in intelligence where the state is at a huge disadvantage. One reason is that we are giving information about ourselves to our enemies at increasing rates. The second is that little is knowable about our enemies, under any circumstances. Secrecy simply serves to aggravate the problem.

Earlier we explored the notion that there is an awful lot that is known about ‘us’ already. Despite the efforts of the ‘privacy hawks’ it looks like even on a personal level data will become public knowledge and that knowledge will become ever easier to access. In addition, while this will happen largely against our wills, it is interesting to note how much of it we are doing ourselves: 41% of the U.S. Population is on Facebook. Britain, Australia and Canada have similar numbers.¹²⁶ In what manner terrorist could use that knowledge is anyone’s guess, but what is known is that criminals (so often at the forefront) are catching on to the possibilities of cross-referencing twitter and Facebook posts with Google Street view and taking advantage accordingly.¹²⁷ Around the corner are technologies that allow tracing of your GPS enabled 3G phone signal by your “friends” in real time: slightly delayed devices are already here.¹²⁸ A program in the developments phase for iPhone recently foiled a burglary of itself using real time GPS tracking.¹²⁹ It is only a matter of time before people who are ruthless and have nothing to gain but the glory of God will mix this knowledge with surprise and make this too part of their intelligence tool kit.

The nature of information technology itself makes sharing information easier and keeping secrets much more difficult. It has been pointed out by Hoffman in this regard that, “perceptions may trump or displace reality within the information dimension of a counterinsurgency. In the Information Age, perceptual isolation will be even more difficult, if not impossible. Today there exist simply too many sources and means by which to transmit ideas and images in real time.”¹³⁰ Examples abound; WikiLeaks, the website that is specialized in disclosing corporate and military secrets is perhaps the best case. Recently WikiLeaks published 90,000 classified documents concerning the war in Afghanistan revealing deep distrust on the part of Military Intelligence officials of Pakistan.¹³¹Even if organizations such as WikiLeaks or the more tabloid militarycorruption.com could ever be shut down, inevitably they will live on in the form of a totally leaderless virtual enterprise. This is not simply a problem for the West however. As the case of Burma during recent antigovernment protests and the disaster following a cyclone, proves. There, the Junta imposed a draconian crackdown on people powered journalism. This was ultimately ineffectual, as images were posted online almost in real time anyway¹³², illustrating Gowing’s point that this allows for the “instant bearing of witness by almost anyone with the modest amount of cash now needed to buy a mobile phone with a camera lens or just a standard digital camera”¹³³

Problem: Wicked Problems, Black Swans and the Super Empowered

Before we go too much further into an admittedly partial solution for the ills of the intelligence community, it will be beneficial to define what the problem is. After all, if there were no real threat, then all the aforementioned issues would merely just amount to a gigantic, but inert, waste of time, energy and effort. Berkowitz & Goodman summarize the change from the Cold War world this way “Today in contrast intelligence organizations must prepare for a variety of unrehearsed scenarios with a fluid set of coalition partners.”¹³⁴

Of course, there is, indeed, a very real threat posed by the global insurgency. It amounts to three connected phenomena: the first is the Wicked Problem (or in Ackoff’s parlance ‘messes¹³⁵’) that is the crux of the global insurgency. The main distinctiveness pertaining to Wicked Problems are:

• “There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem”
• “Wicked problems have no stopping rule”
• “Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad”
• “There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem”
• “Every solution to a wicked problem is a “one-shot operation”; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly”
• “Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan”
• “Every wicked problem is essentially unique”
• “Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem”
• “The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained innumerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem’s resolution”
• “The planner has no right to be wrong (Planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate”.¹³⁶

Anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about the issues related to the Global insurgency can immediately recognize it as a Wicked Problem: “The new terrorism would seem to be a major exemplifying case for complexity theory, for example, it exemplifies major disproportionalities between cause and effect, unpredictable outcomes and self-organizing, emergent structures. Complexity is geared to just such (seeming) contradictions as the disproportion between a fragile group of plotters and the devastating global effects of their actions”.¹³⁷

The second related phenomenon is the ‘why do we care?’ to the first: Black Swan events. Black swan evens are characterized with three distinct traits:

1. Outlier status: Nothing previously “can convincingly point to its possibility”
2. “extreme impact”
3. “Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable”.¹³⁸

The end results of the Global insurgency are described effectively here as well. Despite all the efforts made by the 9/11 commission, or other post terrorism events commissions, these events are intensely novel. In other words, they cannot actually be predicted via trend analysis, and really can only be picked up via exposure: as Taleb explains early in his book (and with a nod to the world of economics), “the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error”¹³⁹. All the ‘tell-tale signs’ that in retrospect would indicate they are predictable, are only limited to being in retrospect. In this way, intelligence regarding terrorism is very different form counter insurgency intelligence: there is plenty of “trend” in CI where as in CT, if the terrorists in question are worth a damn; there is no trend at all. The only answer is to increase the exposure to the Terrorists themselves, and this is very difficult to do if the 800,000 or so people with a Top-Secret clearance live most of their lives in climates controlled by office blocks doing ‘trend analysis’ all day! “Terrorist attacks that depend on the element of surprise are, by their very nature, similar to questions whose answers are only known by a select few.^”140

To deal effectively in the CT realm, we must try to find ways to draw out that information. With a nod to the Mario Puzo “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer”.

Finally, the link between the two is the super-empowered individual. Seemingly, part of the zeitgeist of the moment (and thus, it follows of all previous “big changes” in warfare are to be emulated) is that the super-empowered individual is hailed by both T.X. Hammes and John Robb. According to Hammes, “in sum, political, economic, and social trends point to the emergence of super-empowered individuals or small groups bound together by love for a cause rather than a nation. Employing emerging technology, they are able to generate destructive power that used to require the resources of a nation-state.”¹⁴¹ Robb takes it a step further and suggests that these small groups could take on the nation state and win.¹⁴² There are precursors to the super-empowered individual, but as of today the potentially wide spread destruction of web enabled individuals or micro-cells has not yet occurred. Probably, it is not likely that it will be possible to predict when it will happen because it will be completely novel.

Some seemingly proto super empowered events have already occurred, including the one-man terrorist who decided to blow up French speed cameras.¹⁴³ Perhaps most haunting is the example of the Oklahoma City bombers. Currently however super-empowerment remains basic: The current crop of individuals is “amateurish”¹⁴⁴ and though these terrorists have yet to perpetrate anything very successful, even a “failed operation that garners media attention is as good as a victory for an aspiring extremist group”¹⁴⁵. It seems for now that the Jihadist community is steering clear of the spectacular events in favor of smaller operations with greater chance of success.¹⁴⁶ That could serve to inspire individuals to ‘greater things’ or prove to them, that they can do it too. Relatively small events, such as the treasonous actions of the Ft Hood shooter Nidal Hasan can cause massive overreactions, which serve only to encourage other super-empowered individuals.

What we have then are Black Swan events superimposed on wicked problems and executed through super empowered individuals. What is worse, the intelligence community has a poor record in dealing with both Black Swans events such as 9/11 and wicked problems such as the Afghan insurgency. Indeed, Taleb pointedly described intelligence analysts as a group that is seemingly incapable of making accurate predictions about worthwhile events (i.e. Black Swans)¹⁴⁷.

If there is potential, then it comes from the very fact that we are losing the advantage in TECHINT. The intelligence community’s reliance on highly sophisticated sensors has created a sort of cloistering effect, where only the most elite have access to the very best information. This pattern of immuring information is eroding, resulting in more exposure. The key solution will be to redesign the intelligence community in such a way that risk is incorporated into the decision process. Flattening the organization remains the preferred method of increasing exposure and is diametrically opposed to the reforms passed after 9/11. Those created a highly centralized structure and left inter-agency communications deficiencies untouched.

A Solution? Open analytical communities

If one were to design an intelligence agency, from the ground up, to meet the challenges of global insurgency, would it look anything like the CIA, or the Intelligence Community more broadly? Likely, not, at least not today, since to succeed in such an asymmetric intelligence environment will require the United States find a way to mirror the openness that the terrorists embrace so readily “Changes would require the intelligence community to abandon some of the cold war biases of secrecy and clandestine methods and recognize that open analytical environments are an increasingly relevant and important source of intelligence that supplements traditional forms of intelligence gathering”.¹⁴⁸ This is one of the many paradoxes of fighting in an environment where the weak, bold, and massively decentralized have advantages over the strong, slow and structured societies and nations.

What is needed, then, is a new paradigm in the intelligence field. Let us term it the open analytical communities. Describing a very similar idea, but with a term that is used differently in the intelligence community. Lewis & Chenoweth write:

Open source” is a general term that describes a particular form of production and development. It refers to practices that are based in part on information sharing between producers and users. This allows for access to a final product, in terms of contribution, distribution and communication. Most importantly, the product development benefits constitute the voluntary contributions of a “community” of experts. While this term originated as a way to describe computer software with flexible program codes it can be used more generally to describe various information networks and production in knowledge–intensive industries. With respect to intelligence public media, internet sources and academic articles in the public domain could all be considered “open source” media.¹⁴⁹

A very malleable and responsive intelligence service could and should be devised which takes advantage of the inherent cultural diversity and technological excellence of the United States and Western Europe. Using “real” restricted, but unclassified, information (such as DOCEX material), as well as the wealth of information found but never adequately exploited on-line (and, as is so often the case, off-line), real value-added “intelligence” can be generated. The public at large would be both the creator and the beneficiary of this process, since the government would pay for this value-added directly back to the member of the “community”, based on the actual utility of the information, rather than on a salary. Using techniques pioneered by companies such as Amazon or Google better reporting can be rewarded while poor or compromised reporting can be pushed to the back. Such a program should be built backwards, starting with an idea of what it should accomplish.

That terrorists and their sympathizers could well be reading, or even “contributing” is not a detriment at all, but rather built into the process. When visiting any website, we leave a little bit of ourselves behind. Such meta data is exposure and can be analyzed itself. “It is a fact that terrorist organizations do not provide information on their members”¹⁵⁰ write Memon et al. Coaxing that information out is the key to dealing with terrorism.

Idealized Design

What any reform of the intelligence community needs at the start is a solid idea of the end state we envision and desire. Any circumstances preventing us from achieving that end state should then be removed. Such a process is called Idealized Design. This starts with a simple premise: “An idealized design of a system is [what] the stakeholders would have right now if they could have any system they wanted”¹⁵¹. Robert Ackoff, the business management maverick who popularized the notion of Idealized Design, writes that “planning begins with the formulation of the “mess,” the complex system of interacting problems that constitute the future that the organization already is in if it does nothing”¹⁵².

The paper up to this point has outlined the various aspects of ‘the mess’ the intelligence community finds itself in. Of course, it is not a comprehensive list, but rather a place to start.

Disasters since 9/11 have only been narrowly avoided and the main instrument in defeating them has been exposure (i.e., alert passengers) and not intelligence. If anything, the reforms since 9/11 have served to aggravate some poor practices that were prevalent from before. The United States now has an ever-increasing number of people watching an ever-decreasing number of sensors (people, systems) that provide unique intelligence. The question arises; if the US should decide to do nothing to create reform, what should it realistically expect from the Intelligence Community? Ultimately, nothing good should be anticipated: increased expenses and decreased relevance, at the least. If adequate measures are not taken, individuals will one day be able to attack the state with sophisticated weapons such that that the state will not be able to respond adequately—one man will fight the state and win. All the systems and infrastructure needed for the attack will be readily available, and such attempts will inspire others with grievances, however legitimate or quixotic they may appear to be.

Reform is necessary even if none of the current batch of intelligence agencies survive intact. Nolte asks, “how do we transform NSA, or CIA or NGA; which is not a bad question; how do we create intelligence systems for the United States in the midst of volatile operational and technical environments is a better question, even if the answer leaves no room for any of the existing agencies to plan their 75th anniversaries.”¹⁵³ The Intelligence Community must let go of some of the more onerous assumptions about intelligence if we are to make any headway in reform. Such changes are bound to come whether we like them or not. The IC would be well advised to get ahead of them rather than react to the consequences of ignoring them.

To begin the process of reform, it is first necessary to abandon any assumptions regarding prediction itself, at least for the most remarkable events. Taleb’s prescription for solving Black Swan problems is increasing exposure. However, increasing exposure is no easy feat in the world of Counterterrorism. The price for failure is high; so high that attempts to change the Intelligence Community, after such failures, have been met with stiff resistance. Exposure of planned attacks will happen whether the policy makers like it or not, either on aircrafts (in the form of alert passengers and crew) or online. People will take matters into their own hands¹⁵⁴ if the perception persists that they cannot contribute themselves and that the government is doing little effectively to prevent attacks.

Having established that we need increased, controlled, exposure, it would pay dividends to go on to the next step, setting up the design:

There are two constraints on idealized designs and one important requirement. First the design must be technologically feasible—no science fiction…The constraint of technological feasibility ensures the possibility of implementation of the design but it says nothing about its likelihood…second constraint is that the design, if implemented must be capable of surviving in the current environment. Therefore, it cannot violate the law and must conform to any relevant regulations and rules…Finally there is the important requirement that the process that is designed must be capable of being improved over time. If that which is designed is an organization or institution, it must be capable of learning and adapting to changing internal and external condition”.¹⁵⁵

The policy must be framed in a manner at the same time realistic, flexible, and ready to create transformation. The product of such efforts needs to be of an ideal design for the here and now; neither utopian, nor idealistic, nor perfect. This situation is desired because it allows room for improvement.

Is it technically feasible? Since the solution to the problem of Black Swan events lies in exposure to the processes, the answer I propose is open analytical communities. This is because such communities are present on the internet and the first answer in this regard can be construed to be in the affirmative. Well, nearly present. A lot of the raw information needed to make solid analytical assessments is not vet released to the public, though ironically organizations such as WikiLeaks show that insider knowledge has a way of becoming outsider knowledge. This can and should be turned to the advantage of the CT community. As Linus Toralds — the creator of the Linux has said—“all software problems are small when there are numerous eyes looking at them.” ¹⁵⁶ That model of distributed innovation serves as an example for the “creation of a public forum for the collection and distribution of open-source intelligence”¹⁵⁷ What is needed is organization,

The question that arises next pertains to how the product should appear. Open analytical communities are also in keeping with the ultimate war aim of the war on terror which, according to Philip Bobbitt is “not territory, or access to resources or conversion to our political way of life. It is the protection of civilians within the rule of law”¹⁵⁸ Such communities, lacking any classified material, but fully taking advantage of what is already publicly available, clearly fall inside the rule of law, as opposed to other intelligence methods and entities which, while perhaps necessary, are more problematic legally. Thus, open analytical communities take full advantage of something previously identified as a problem, namely that open source intelligence is getting better.

What other aspects should this design have?

Fluid hierarchies should be based on contributions. The era of the ‘senior analyst’ who made his reputation tracking Russian Submarines 30 years ago, and has done marginal work since then, is over. Such persons simply do not represent anything useful in the current environment. Open analytical communities inherently punish those who rest on their laurels.¹⁵⁹ Self-selecting systems and leadership systems abound on the internet. Of particular importance for open analytical environments is the collaborative moderation process supported by different codes. According to Stalder and Hirsh, users who contribute good stories or comments on stories are rewarded with karma, which is essentially a points system that enables people to build up their reputation. Once a user has accumulated a certain number of points, s/he can assume more responsibilities, and is even trusted to moderate other people’s comments.”¹⁶⁰ This is merely one of a multitude of systems available as examples, and while it may seem a little ‘out there’ it cannot be argued that it is less of a meritocracy than the system currently in place (and its real alternative): some combination of longevity and cronyism. The cost related with such systems should be at the lower level. The last thing the Unites States needs is for another program that costs a bundle to add to Muller and Stewarts’s “self-licking ice cream cone”.

At the same time, this reformed intelligence gathering process should incentivize drawing in to the system people who possess unique talents or attributes. A pertinent example in this regard is a recent instance at the airport. By a twist of fate, the man from whom my wife purchased an airline ticket from at San Diego international Airport was from Jolo Island, southern Philippines. Happily, a US “green card” holder, and fluent in most of the local languages of the southern Philippines, Togaligue and English, he was a prime example of sort of Cultural Diversity which epitomizes many Western nations and especially the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and France.

Not that having him in our effort half a world away from his homeland would have helped:

almost by definition, he would not have received a clearance. Additionally, there is no structure in place to either give him opportunity to work in the intelligence field, or to give him any sort of incentive to do so. Security clearance issues prevent those with cultural insights and language expertise from viewing relevant data.

Thus, one of the most important intelligence coordination issues is that of integrating the intelligence gathered from foreign lands into repositories capable of moving selected information from classified and secret to lower level classifications or into open systems for use by homeland security and law enforcement entities.¹⁶¹ Intelligence information is normally slotted into highly classified, compartmentalized, and highly restricted federal government systems.¹⁶² Changing the focus from merely gathering intelligence information, to targeting specific pieces of data, for use by more law enforcement authorities, represents a substantial undertaking, involving declassification and properly handling legal safeguards.¹⁶³ Issues such as these continue to plague the intelligence community’s efforts to integrate data and other intelligence efforts. An open analytical environment offers a way to integrate people who offer language skills and unique cultural insights, solving for another problem in the current intelligence community, but not just for them.

“First responders at the state and local level–including private citizens and business may be the first to receive warning and indications of an attack. These individuals, many of whom may have never been exposed to national intelligence institutions or their procedures, will be the first line collectors as well as decision makers as the crisis unfolds”. ¹⁶⁴ This should not be so: an ideal designed open analytic community should also allow for ‘first responders’ to receive ‘real’ intelligence, even if it is not ‘secret’ intelligence. An open analytical community would solve for this because all the information would be unclassified and therefore shareable with all partners no matter what their technological capabilities. An open analytical community would solve for this because the results of this resource would be available for all to use. Little or no data would belong exclusively to the CIA, or to anyone else.

Muller and Stewart argue that the real cost of terrorism arises from the sort of vast Government spending prompted by 11 September, and not from terrorism itself. While future attacks will, in all probability, inflict substantially more economic damage, in our present reality, any new service must be not merely new, but also justify its price by delivering substantive insights. In the context of new, open and analytical communities, Stralder and Hirsh have said that, “The start-up costs for new projects are minimal, and possibilities for adapting the platform to the idiosyncratic needs of each project are maximized. The resulting diversity, in turn, enriches the connective learning process.”¹⁶⁵

The reason is not just that developers will tend to accomplish it at minimal costs, but also because of the assortment of incentives which are potentially on offer, only a few of which are monetary. One potential mechanism for a fairly low-cost incentive for the open analysis world might be to incentivise desired behaviour via games. Developers like games because they “are rewards-based systems that motivate us to do things.”¹⁶⁶ One might add, that these things seem often to be those which are avoided or ignored in real life, especially by the age cadre which participates most enthusiastically, for example, writing, close reading, planning, delaying gratification, thinking ahead, cooperating, communicating with persons from disparate backgrounds. Whether the incentive is to engage in a vast and highly cooperative virtual online world like World of Warcraft, or high-tech scavenger hunts, games have been successful in bringing population-sized cohorts of people together and encouraging them to solve problems creatively. Small-scale, but interesting instances abound.

For example, MIT students won $40000 from DARPA for locating ten red balloons.¹⁶⁷ They took less than eight hours to do so. Their eminently pragmatic strategy involved subcontracting they shared a sub-prize of $2000 with each individual who found a balloon. In another experiment Wired magazine columnist Evan Ratliff attempted to completely “disappear”. Ratliff writes in this context that “Wired offered $5,000 to anyone who could find him, with $3,000 going to Evan if he remained undiscovered for a month. He was found.¹⁶⁸ In a follow-on experiment, Wired magazine in combination with a movie promotion attempted to ‘disappear’ four persons. Till the time of going to the press two had been discovered.¹⁶⁹ In a high-tech social network culture, enlisting the public via a combination scavenger hunt and most-wanted poster works rather successfully.

These experiments contrast sharply with the real thing: consider the ten year long hunt for Bin Laden. Open collaboration and the right incentive for the right information produced results for red balloons; could they produce the right results for terror cells as well? An attempt to find out resulted in (largely misguided) public outrage when DARPA suggested using market mechanisms to predict terrorism.¹⁷⁰ While the culture of the internet seems to be shifting to a ‘for-profit’ model¹⁷¹, there is still reason to believe that contributions may be motivated by forces other than “immediate financial gain”¹⁷² This is very hopeful for solving the problem of the ever more costly intelligence community. “This virtual community of experts would supplement the process of intelligence gathering, by creating a mechanism to incorporate the collective knowledge of the terrorism research community into the Government’s” ¹⁷³ open analytical program.

This newfound respectability for unclassified information does nothing to mitigate the sheer volume of information faced by intelligence analysts. However, here too, open analytical environments offer hope for the exploitation of user centered innovation processes. What is needed now is an acknowledgement that we need to move on from the ‘brief the commander and then he makes the call’ model to a model where the commander or decision maker becomes an active participant in deciding what information he needs to make a sound decision.

Because of the relatively low cost of IT, it is possible to create tailored solutions¹⁷⁴. This would start with the creation of a standard toolkit, which creates custom applications. These convey information across the classification spectrum (what Hippel would call Heterogeneity¹⁷⁵) and present it to commanders such that it fulfills the commander’s requirements at that time. In other words, we need a “user centered innovation process”¹⁷⁶ a concept largely borrowed from the IT community. A description of a notional tool kit follows:

Toolkits for user innovation and design are integrated sets of product-design, prototyping and design-tested tools intended for use by end users. The goal of the toolkit is to enable non-specialists users do design high quality, producible custom products that exactly meet their needs. Toolkits often contain “user-friendly” features that guide users as they work. They are specific to the type of product or service and a specific production system.¹⁷⁷

An example of this would be a semantic wiki. Taking advantage of wiki as a “simple online database with interlinked web-pages”¹⁷⁸ it adds the “Semantic technologies [which] aim for machine-to-machine integration and re-use of data. A semantic wiki thus resembles the more structured and computer-friendly domain of databases. Compared to a traditional database, a semantic wiki allows for; expanding the structure; letting the domain model emerge from actual usage; collaborative, distributed work flows and processes; and the reuse of standard vocabularies.”¹⁷⁹ The ability of the wiki model to mechanically cross-reference heterogeneous databases automatically¹⁸⁰ and then allow analytical comment is especially intriguing element of this technology especially since “the data comprising terrorist networks tend to be heterogeneous, multi-relational and semi-structured.”¹⁸¹

In another context, military training, simulation and gaming, the US Army is already taking advantage of this low-cost technology. ¹⁸² A congressional research paper takes note of, “Web 2.0, a second-generation method of using Web technology to create communities, or social networks, where instead of passively viewing content, each user can dynamically create and modify and share Web content. Thus Web 2.0 technology allows users to collaborate and create self-organizing communities that can increase the value and power of peer relationships and simultaneously disrupt traditional real-world methods for hierarchical control over information flows”¹⁸³

These goals can all be achieved technically. Indeed, “Many of the Internet’s core technologies were created to facilitate free and easy information sharing among peers. This always included two-way and multicast communication so that information could not only be distributed efficiently, but also evaluated collaboratively”¹⁸⁴. The solutions may therefore be inherent to the internet itself.

However, that does not help overcome the more problematic second constraint. While the law likely does not have a lot to say about open collaborative environments, the history of the publicly led innovations in the field of intelligence has been shaky. The most prominent example is the so-called “Terrorism-market” which started out as a mechanism for analysts inside the international community to show, in reality, how much they really believed what they were writing. It morphed away from being an analytical tool to being an intelligence sensor (in reality a form of HUMINT) when it was proposed that it should go public. Modeled on the Iowa Electronic Political Markets, and on internal markets at Hewlett Packard, the intention was that in a world where terrorists had to reveal themselves ever more rarely, this might pose them an irresistible offer and thereby ease their capture. The amount of meta data (computer IP address, server IP address, registration information about the players, etc.) could have been a gold mine, in and of themselves. The public, politicians and the press, perhaps unsurprisingly, hated it.¹⁸⁵

Early discussion of the terrorism market also focused on the consequences of having open registration for participation, which would potentially allow terrorists to profit from their activities…But on closer examination, concerns about terrorists making money seem far less pressing than the concern that they would use the market to foil the intelligence community… Given the willingness of terrorists to expend resources—including lives—on their missions, it is not far-fetched to imagine that they would be willing to take a financial loss to mislead the Pentagon.¹⁸⁶

Of course, these were in all likelihood factored in, ab initio much as open analytical community would . What the public couldn’t be made to understand was that the market was an attempt at exposure. DARPA was faced with the daunting task of explaining to an already skeptical public this novel approach to evaluating intelligence, knowing that the enemy would promptly catch on as well. DARPA’s response was perhaps inevitable; they let the markets die.

Would an open analytical community face the same withering critics? Some factors point to a different conclusion. One hopeful point is that the cost of the program would be minimal, and the motivation for the participation would be different. For another, open analytical communities enjoy a rather better reputation than does the market these days.

Conclusion

The responsibility of the intelligence community is the reliable provision to security agencies and the citizenry of meaningful insight and information for use in time of need. If intelligence agencies do not fulfill this responsibility, they are considered to have failed entirely. After such an apparent total failure, the perceived value of the effort and capital resources expended for collection and processing of such information deteriorates sharply.

What is required is a blend of sensitive intelligence, obtained through human agents and intelligence satellites, including procedures whereby complex data can be analyzed in the public arena, while being integrated with confidential information. The fast-changing environment of counterterrorism demands greater interaction and interdependence. Governments need to adapt their practices promptly. Although governments continue to search for new ways to handle the acquisition and movement of data, public demand for transparency and more information is increasing. Open analytical environments can do all of this.

Expertise inside and outside the government has to be channeled in authentic ways to allow decision-makers and intelligence agencies to take proactive and pre-emptive preventive measures against any terrorist attack. Practical operational solutions are the necessary response to the demands for sharing of information and integrating expertise, rather than a conceptual examination of broader issues in different information communities. The government has a vital role to play in acquiring and using information from disparate sources. Such widely sourced data will inform decisions and responses to the new and constantly growing threat posed by the vast range of World Wide Web-based information now available to terrorists.

Master Sun would agree that intelligence gathering is, no doubt, an important factor both in winning and losing; for the government or the terrorist organization; and to the military and the terrorist themselves. However, it is very unfortunate that the bulk of critical information is equally accessible to the terrorist organizations. It is very striking to realize that while the intelligence community is struggling to retain secrecy as part of their strategy, Internet companies such as Google have mounted a full-on development effort for technologies equally as useful to the terrorists as to the military.

In view of this, terrorism’s impact is getting more serious and damaging. Terrorism is also facilitated by technology advances. Any perpetrator knows that they can use and manipulate the newest technology to carry out their vicious objectives. Indeed, terrorism remains a threat to every government around the world, with havoc wrought in potentially every community. Just as the military is investing resources both in updating information acquisition skills, and new counter-terrorism technologies, the extremists simultaneously seek new means of concealment and inflicting terror

The military (and other entities fighting terroristic threats) are operating practically in lockstep, or like chess players; both are using the same technology. Along the way however, terrorists can target any widely populated or culturally significantly site, while retaining the advantage of anonymity. The suggestion proposed earlier to plant spies in areas where the terrorists are likely to be found is a good idea. Of course, this poses extreme language problems. However, this problem can be resolved by hiring nationals who are both multi-lingual and bi-cultural (i.e., possessing cultural competency as well). Unfortunately, in case of an attack, Sims points out, the “first responder at the state and local level—including private citizens and business—may be the first to receive warning and indications of an attack. These individuals many of whom may have never been exposed to national intelligence institutions or their produces will the first line collectors [of information] as well as decision makers as the crises unfolds”¹⁸⁷

The best way perhaps to defeat terrorism is that the government must use all sources of information available and utilize them in a far more efficient manner. In this case, the Open Secret community must be fully adopted. The internet has been a fast-growing medium for information interchange and would be a great tool in the fight against terrorism. All that is required is a set of motivators for innovation from the government itself.

To have a greater chance of defeating terrorism the government must use all information available and utilized them in a more efficient manner. For this matter, the Open analytic community must be embraced. The internet has been a fast-growing media for information interchange and would be a great tool in the fight against terrorism. All that is required are some motivations for innovation from the government itself.

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Footnotes

1 Tzu, 49.

2 Office of the DNI.

3 Keaney & Cohen, 200.

4 Bergquist.

5 Hammes,“The Sling and The Stone.” 2.

6 Hammes,“The Sling and The Stone.”290.

7 Hammes,“The Sling and The Stone.”290.

8 Jacobson.

9 Wilkie, 13-7.

10 Hoffman, “Complex Irregular Warfare.” 395.

11 Hammes,”The Sling and The Stone.” passim.

12 Hammes,”Fourth Generation Warfare.”21.

13 Keaney &. Cohen, 41.

14 Hoffman, “Neo-Classical Insurgency?” 80.

15 Gray.

16 Sloan.

17 Von Clausewitz.

18 Terrill.

19 Gompert, Kugler & Libicki.

20 Kenney 6-7.

21 Sims, 399.

22 Nolte, 9.

23 Kundnani, 118.

24 Brimley, 30.

25 Brimley, 30.

26 Brimley, 30.

27 Brimley, 30.

28 Berkowitz & Goodman, 13.

29 Robb, 111.

30 Hammes, “Fourth Generation.”14-23.

31 Nolte, 6.

32 Gowling, 1.

33 Hearn.

34 Martin, “Witnessing Gaza Rocket”.

35 Orlowski.

36 McCullagh, 129.

37 “BlackBerry Encryption Concerns”.

38 Palmer.

39 “Google Street View”.

40 Sims, 409.

41 Yin, 149.

42 Stenersen, “The Internet” 215.

43 Smith, 33.

44 Al-Shishani, 3-4.

45 Haberfeld, Von Agostino, LaRaia, & Walker, 318.

46 McElroy.

47 Kundnani, 117.

48 Brimley, 30.

49 Brimley, 30.

50 Arquilla, 62.

51 Brimley, 30.

52 Shears.

53 Gardham.

54 Finkle.

55 Brafman & Beckstrom, 40.

56 Betz, 525.

57 Martin “Defeating Terrorism”.

58 Martin “Defeating Terrorism”.

59 Martin “Defeating Terrorism”.

60 Landree.

61 Kraut, Brynin & Kiesler.

62 Sims, 403.

63 Stenersen, “Chem-Bio Cyber Class” 9.

64 Sims, 398.

65 Hoffman,”Neo-Classical Insurgency?” 73.

66 Priest & Arken.

67 Priest & Arken.

68 Priest & Arken.

69 Hoffman, “Neo-Classical Insurgency?” 78.

70 Taha, 250.

71 Taylor & Goldman, 430.

72 Taha, 250.

73 Taha, 250.

74 Taha, 250.

75 Taha, 250.

76 Taha, 250.

77 Betts, 47.

78 Taylor & Goldman, 431.

79 Zegart, 104.

80 Betts, 47.

81 Popp, Armour, Senator, & Numrych , 41.

82 “The Many Voices of the Web” 3.

83 Brimley, 30.

84 Higgie.

85 Higgie.

86 Higgie.

87 Higgie.

88 Higgie.

89 Higgie.

90 Higgie.

91 Nolte, 7.

92 Shalamanov, Johnson & Fay, 129.

93 Berman & Flint.

94 Berman & Flint.

95 Berman & Flint.

96 Berman & Flint.

97 Berman & Flint.

98 Berman & Flint.

99 Cooper, 7.

100 Linden.

101 Tzu, 49.

102 Zegart, 104.

103 (The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States), 415.

104 Kauppi, 44.

105 Kauppi, 44.

106 Windrem & Engel.

107 Gardner.

108 Kauppi, 44.

109 Hitz, 765.

110 Hitz, 765.

111 Hitz, 765.

112 Bergen & Tiedemann, 69.

113 Priest & Arken.

114 Kauppi, 47.

115 Priest & Arken.

116 Kauppi, 52.

117 Roston.

118 Taylor & Goldman, 421.

119 Muller & Stewart.

120 Hammes, “Essay: Dumb-dumb Bullets.”.

121 Thomas, 3.

122 Thomas, 201.

123 Gray, 16.

124 Cooper, 41.

125 Kauppi, 46.

126 Fletcher, 37.

127 Camber.

128 Shankland.

129 Oswald.

130 Hoffman, “Neo-Classical Insurgency?” 82.

131 Ackerman.

132 Gowling, Nick, 63-6.

133 Gowling, Nick, 77.

134 Berkowitz & Goodman , 116.

135 Ackoff, Magidson, & Addison, 5.

136 Horn & Weber, 2.

137 Cetina, 213-4.

138 Taleb, xxii.

139 Taleb, xxi.

140 Meirowitz & Tucker, 333.

141 Hammes, “Fourth Generation Warfare” 21.

142 Robb, 11.

143 “Radar”.

144 Dickey, 34.

145 Dickey, 36.

146 Stenersen, 12.

147 Taleb, 146.

148 Lewis & Chenoweth, 491.

149 Lewis & Chenoweth, 487-8.

150 Memon, Hicks, Harkiolakis & Rajput, 341

151 Ackoff, Magidson & Addison, 249.

152 Ackoff, Magidson & Addison, 248.

153 Nolte , 9.

154 Al-Shishani, 3.

155 Ackoff, Magidson & Addison, 8-9.

156 Lewis & Chenoweth, 494.

157 Lewis & Chenoweth, 494.

158 Bobbitt, 42.

159 Stalder & Hirsh.

160 Stalder & Hirsh.

161 Mitchell, 13.

162 Mitchell, 13.

163 Mitchell, 13.

164 Sims, 413.

165 Stalder & Hirsh.

166 Sutter.

167 Gross.

168 Ratliff.

169 “Repo Men Database”.

170 Meirowitz & Tucker.

171 Stalder & Hirsh.

172 Stalder & Hirsh.

173 Brimley, 30.

174 Berkowitz, & Goodman, 17.

175 Hippel, 42.

176 Hippel, 1.

177 Hippel, 147-8.

178 Fidjeland, Reitan, Hansen, Halvorsen, Langsæter & Hafnor, 7.

179 Fidjeland, Reitan, Hansen, Halvorsen, Langsæter & Hafnor, 8.

180 Fidjeland, Reitan, Hansen, Halvorsen, Langsæter & Hafnor, 16.

181 Ellis 340-1.

182 Wilson, CRS-5.

183 Wilson, CRS-1.

184 Stalder & Hirsh.

185 Meirowitz, & Tucker.

186 Meirowitz, & Tucker, 333.

187 Sims, 413.