As below, Dean presented at the COIN Center’s Virtual Brown Bag session this morning…the slides and audio file will be posted on the Center’s website in the next few days…I may be offline for a week or so as I am off globetrotting again but will link them in when I get an opportunity…in the meantime I strongly recommend that anyone with a personal or professional interest in contemporary intel issues, key an eye of the site and download both files when they become available. This is very good stuff and at least on a par with MG Flynn’s Fixing Intel paper from earlier this year…

Top effort from Dean and it is great to see a compadre’s efforts paying off like this….

As a taster, here’s some of the questions that were asked during the session (to hear the answers, you’ll need to download the files…)

MAJ Decker BCTP – guest: Coming in loud and clear

Peter Sakaris – guest: To understand the environment over time shouldn’t we be getting better more reliable HUMINT through increased population interaction? I would think that the example of a new officer working with a veteran police officer in the CONUS as you described would help to do this in the COIN environment. Obtaining the institutional knowledge of an environment can come from people that live in that environment because they live it every day and are in areas of the local community where it would be difficult for us to get into.

Kevin Frank JIWC – guest: Not will ing give up on the analysis issue- believe that if we collect the correct data and present it to the analyst correctly, we’ll get better analysis at the current training levels, especially if the commander is asking the right questions…comments?

DK Clark, DTAC/CGSC – guest: Did you use the pattern-analysis plot, activities matrix, association matrix, and societal considerations in FM 3-24.2? If so, could you comment on problems with these methods/techniques of framing and displaying the intel analysis in COIN?

MAJ Decker BCTP – guest: Afghanistan Reintegration Program (ARP) is now doing the same as the Boston Gun Project by providing retraining opportunities to former insurgents

HOMBSCH, DAVID G Lt Col : Comment only (no need to repeat):   I love the quote – “analysts to be historians, librarians, journalists” – spot on.   I also totally agree, with exploiting reach back – generate staff with expert knowledge on specific regions, who understand normality, and can interpret important changes (indicators and warnings) to cross cue counter insurgent forces.  Hypothesis – there is a place for more foreign nationals in analysis teams in CONUS and allied intelligence agencies?

CPT Linn – guest: how are we integrating analysis into Data collected from FETs and HUMINTs in theater?

Peter Sakaris – guest: The Stability Academy, Kabul (formerly the COIN center of Excellence) is a COIN Academy that the leadership of deploying BCTs cycle through as part of their RIP/TOAs. They recommend the ASCOPE/PMESII-PT crosswalk as an analytical tool for helping gain the needed detailed understanding of the “complex human terrain”. Are you familiar with this, or other tools like it such as TCAPF and do you find them useful for this purpose? Have you seen other approaches not discussed that are/have been in use?

CPT Linn – guest: also how is that data utilized in targeting packages?

MAJ Allen Smith – guest: Do you vet and confirm info from gang leaders using SIGINT?  How do you build trust on a Narc?

Kevin Frank JIWC – guest: There are many units out there reporting data (CATs, FETs, PRTs, unit reports etc) . But are they getting the right information? ASCOPE is one guide- are there other collection guides out there that can help us get better data? Does the LE community have anythi

Kevin Frank JIWC – guest: anything that can help?

RODRIGUEZ, ISMAEL R USA  2: Any thoughts on the application of GIS in a police intelligence role? Do you think these techniques could translate well in COIN?