Best Practices in Military Intelligence

The sheer number of threats against America requires that we think strategically about military intelligence as applied to those threats. The target (or subject) of intelligence activities includes not only existing threats to our national interest but also emerging and evolving threats, both by state- and non-state-actors. We must collect, organize, and categorize information about these actors, then communicate that information to the right people at the right time in order to strategically approach the desired end state of a secure America.

Several guidelines for achieving the above are given in the video "Applying the Strategic Approach to Military Intelligence," which, unfortunately, is not publicly available. Some of these guiding principles include:

1. Military intelligence must be mission driven. We must understand our objectives - our mission - and be able to convert those objectives into concrete actions at the operational level. Another way of formulating this is that we must be cognizant of our objectives, of our role in the F3EAD and other cycles, and act accordingly. All actions must be measured by the extent that they further our mission.
2. Because of the importance of the mission, and the severity of the consequences should we fail, we must become subject matter experts to the point of dominating the intelligence battle space.
3. The best way to accomplish this is to employ individuals who are proactive, who are facilitators and can network, who understand the function of intelligence, and most importantly are of high moral character. By having such individuals in place, they can overcome any defects in a slightly flawed system.
4. Team leaders must be able to keep the team on track and must challenge team members to reach and exceed their preconceived abilities as analysts. The leader must also be able to differentiate quality team members from toxic actors (those that are politicized, subversive, etc.) and take corrective action to limit the damage caused by the latter.
5. The mission and supporting critical activities should be written into a "mission statement" before entering a high-stress environment with rapid operational tempo. This allow teams and their leaders to remain "centered," and continue being proactive.

These principles form the basis of an extremely capable intelligence organization. There is a weakness not addressed in that video, however. Intelligence teams must surely meet all the above-listed principles to be effective in their job of providing superior intelligence to enhance decision making. Possessing all these qualities is called "being on the happy path" in the parlance of information technology.

What happens when we leave the happy path? Meaning, what happens when a team (or whole agency) fails to meet one or more of those criteria? At best it leads to the agency failing in their job of providing timely, relevant, accurate and actionable intelligence; at worst it leads to systematic abuse.

Intelligence agencies used to be reigned-in through several means: congressional oversight, budgetary limitations, and the court system. Each of those has failed: congress no longer provides oversight, as proven by their willingness to extend the warrantless wiretapping provisions of the Patriot Act, as well as the initial ratification of that act itself. Budgetary concerns are no longer the concern of either political party. Further, the decreasing cost of IT resources (storage and processing) makes automated intelligence gathering extremely affordable. Finally, the court system has turned a blind eye to the 4th Amendment and the protections it affords to Americans, and private companies (especially those in the telecom and banking sectors) are more than willing to be accessories and share customer data.

Without some sort of external check on intelligence agencies, we must rely on them to be self-regulating, which means that they are unregulated. It is not clear how to reestablish boundaries on the scope of intelligence agencies other than by addressing the above-mentioned political, fiscal, and legal failures. By not reestablishing these checks, military intelligence agencies will not only experience mission creep but also mission drift, rendering those agencies less able to provide intelligence for our protection as a nation as well as altering the relationship the agencies have with our fellow citizens.

Invasion Phase of the War in Afghanistan: A Jus post Bellum Analysis

Introduction

The War in Afghanistan occurred in two stages: the first was the invasion in 2001, the second was the insurgency phase which lasted from the end of the invasion until American withdrawal in 2021. The difference (besides switching from symmetric to asymmetric warfare) is usually accounted for by a change of enemy: during the invasion-phase the enemy was the Islamic Emirate’s military, and afterwards it was the Taliban.

This paper begins with a review of modern (“maximalist”) jus post bellum theory as exposed by Brian Orend. The theory is then critically examined both independent of the rest of Just War Theory as well as how jus post bellum relates to jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Finally, it is applied to the end of the invasion phase of the War in Afghanistan.

Jus post Bellum, Old and New

Frowe distinguishes¹ between a minimalist and maximalist approach to jus post bellum.

The minimalist approach, advocated by the diplomat and legal theorist Hugo Grotius, is designed to rein-in the zeal of the victor. It considers jus post bellum criteria as permissions: what the victors are allowed to do in victory. The minimalist theory allows the victors to take actions that “protect themselves, recover that which was illicitly taken, [and] punish the perpetrators.” Temporary occupation is acceptable, colonization is not. Further, it is unacceptable to force the inhabitants of the defeated nation into slavery.

The maximalist approach imposes obligations on the victors instead of granting them permissions. The concern is not that the victor’s actions must be limited, but rather that the victor will do too little, leaving the defeated nation a failed and dysfunctional state.

Orend’s Jus post Bellum Criteria

Orend claims² that a just peace must satisfy all of the following criteria:

Rights vindication – “The settlement should secure those basic rights whose violation triggered the justified war. The relevant rights include human rights to life and liberty and community entitlements to territory and sovereignty.”³

Proportionality and publicity – Conditions stipulated by the peace treaty should not be vengeful and should be publicly available.

Discrimination – Isolate civilians from punitive measures.

Punishment of leaders – Leaders of the defeated nation must be punished, as a deterrence to future aggression, to spur atonement, and “failing to punish the aggressor degrades and disrespects the worth, status, and suffering of the victim.”⁴

Punishment for war crimes – Combatants on all sides must be held accountable for any war crimes.

Compensation – Subject to proportionality and discrimination.

Rehabilitation – Aggressor state may require demilitarization and political rehabilitation (regime change).

Problems with Jus post Bellum Criteria by Itself

The main problem with jus post bellum criteria is that it commits the victor to nation-building. Orend requires that we restore rights, including “community entitlements to territory and sovereignty,” not just individual rights. He goes on to require that the victorious nation must⁵:

• “Provide effective military and police security for the whole country.”
• “Revamp educational curricula to purge past propaganda and cement new values.”
• “Ensure that the benefits of the new order will be (i) concrete, and (ii) widely – not narrowly – distributed.”

We must provide military defense, police, an educational system, and a distributive economic system for the defeated nation. We’re responsible for their long-term care, well-being, and protection. We’re not just stopping a war; we’re exporting a progressive’s conception of democracy. Orend explicitly acknowledges this, summoning the spirit of Immanuel Kant and stating that for the defeated nation, “the utmost which can be done to it in vindication of international law and order is the establishment of a more peaceable and progressive social order within it.”⁶

Frowe notes that the maximalist jus post bellum as espoused by Orend is grounded in liberal theory and international law⁷; she is being literal here, and the foreign policy required by Orend (and Kant) is best described as “liberal imperialism”⁸ and commits us to being not only the world’s policemen but also the world’s social workers.

Relationship to the Rest of Just War Theory

Other than the Doctrine of Discrimination, discussed in next section, the maximalist approach to jus post bellum interacts with at least two other criteria from Just War Theory: the “reasonable chance of success” criterion from jus ad bellum and the proportionality requirement from jus in bello.

If a likelihood of success is required before entering into war, then the nation building described above must be part of the calculation. Rebuilding a whole nation in the way described by Orend is a truly massive undertaking that is unlikely to succeed, as illustrated by the insurgency stage of the War in Afghanistan. Thus, the probability of success is lowered.

The type and amount of collateral damage inflicted must also be considered, as the victor nation is responsible for rebuilding the infrastructure damaged during the war. Under this, the cost of reconstruction must play a role in determining whether to attack a specific target, and not just military benefit. The evaluation of proportional response is thus distorted by economic concerns.

The Doctrine of Discrimination

The Doctrine of Discrimination, usually considered part of jus in bello, arises again in Orend’s jus post bellum criteria: the civilians⁹ of the defeated nation must be isolated from punitive economic measures enforced by the victor. The doctrine thus plays the same role in both jus post bellum and jus in bello theories: avoid harming the civilians. The Doctrine of Discrimination is problematic in both theories because it makes a crucial assumption about the civilians of the enemy nation: that they are “innocent.”

How do civilians get along in a totalitarian regime? It is popularly assumed that they have no choice in the matter, that they (as a whole) were forced to live in a dictatorship. Is this really the truth? There are numerous examples of dictators who won office through popular election.

Further, members of the populace frequently act as informants, collaborators, or private enforcers of the government edicts. A good example of this came after the fall of the Berlin Wall: once Germany was reunited, lists of collaborators with the East German Stasi were released, and it has been calculated that 18% of the population of the city of Rostock were informers.¹⁰

A more recent and close-to-home example of private individuals and companies taking on the role of law enforcement happened during the lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and mask mandates in 2020 – 2023: examples of government enforcement of these mandates (for example, discharging military members for refusing vaccination) did occur, but it was far more common to have private people and institutions act as enforcers¹¹.

No, private individuals and non-combatants are far from innocent, and this undercuts the Doctrine of Proportionality. This will become extremely relevant in the next section.

Conclusion - Application of Jus post Bellum to the War in Afghanistan

During both phases of the war, the United States clearly distinguished the military vs. civilian parts of Afghani culture and endeavored to avoid or at least limit the use of force against civilians as much as possible. In that, we followed the Doctrine of Discrimination, taking no punitive actions against non-combatants and requiring almost no cultural changes. In fact, we went out of our way to leave as little of an “American culture footprint”¹² as possible.

Examples of this were the so-called “Cultural Support Teams”¹³ and the “Female Engagement Teams.”¹⁴ The goals of both programs were to build relationships with Afghani women by sending female soldiers or Marines to meet with them and earn their trust. They were initially controversial because they involved placing females into combat situations. The real controversy should have been the extent that the teams kowtowed to the misogynistic aspects of Afghani culture: female soldiers and Marines were required to always wear head coverings and always have male escorts, even when security was not a major concern. Both CSTs and FETs were considered failures.

More egregious examples of this “cultural support” were the continuation of child marriages and bacha bazi, the latter being the purchase and use of adolescent and pre-adolescent boys for sex by mature male adults. Bacha bazi was outlawed by occupation forces¹⁵ as well as by the Taliban (both before and after American withdraw). However, U.S. forces were explicitly instructed to ignore instances of such sexual abuse. According to the father of one Marine in Afghanistan, “my son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s their culture.”¹⁶ A Special Forces soldier was relieved of his command after acting against an Afghan perpetrator.¹⁷ The practice continues unabated.

Bacha Bazi in Afghanstan. Photo from the Indian Times

While all this was happening, foreign policy experts were arguing for “the separation of mosque and state.”¹⁸ It was clear that the Americans thought it was sufficient to replace the Islamic Emirate with the Islamic Republic, substituting one system of government with another.

Was the period following the end of the combat phase of the War in Afghanistan a just peace? In one sense it was, because we undertook the process of rebuilding that nation. In another sense it was not, because we never defeated the real enemy, the “innocent” Afghan civilians.

Footnotes

1. Helen Frowe, The Ethics of War and Peace. Routledge, 2022.
2. Brian Orend, “Jus Post Bellum: The Perspective of a Just-War Theorist.”
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. All quotes from ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Helen Frowe, The Ethics of War and Peace. Routledge, 2022.
8. Dan Cox, “The Age of Liberal Imperialism: Twenty-Five Years of a Flawed U.S. Foreign Policy.”
9. Orend specifies “civilians” and avoids discussion of non-combatants and other edge-cases.
10. Peter Wensierski, "East Germany thrived on snitching lovers, fickle friends and envious schoolkids."
11. Madeline Chambers, “Germans snitch on neighbours flouting virus rules, in echo of the Stasi past.”
12. Ben Connable. “Human Terrain System is Dead, Long Live … What?”
13. Megan Katt, “Blurred Lines: Cultural Support Teams in Afghanistan.”
14. Anna Coll, “Evaluating Female Engagement Team Effectiveness in Afghanistan.”
15. Chris Mondloch, “Bacha Bazi: An Afghan Tragedy.”
16. Joseph Goldstein, “U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies.”
17. Ibid.
18. Alexander Bernard, “The Advantage to Islam of Mosque-State Separation: What the American Founders can teach.”

Bibliography

Bernard, A. “The Advantage to Islam of Mosque-State Separation: What the American Founders can teach.” Hoover Institution, 29 January 2008. Retrieved 4 May 2024 from https://www.hoover.org/research/advantage-islam-mosque-state-separation

Chambers, M. “Germans snitch on neighbours flouting virus rules, in echo of the Stasi past.” Reuters, 2 April 2020. Retrieved 4 May 2024 from https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN21K2RD/

Coll, A. “Evaluating Female Engagement Team Effectiveness in Afghanistan.” Wellesley College Honors Thesis Collection, April 2012. Retrieved 5 May 2024 from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217003814.pdf

Connable, B. “Human Terrain System is Dead, Long Live … What?” Military Review, January-February 2018. Retrieved 5 May 2024 from https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/January-February-2018/Human-Terrain-System-is-Dead-Long-Live-What

Cox, D. “The Age of Liberal Imperialism: Twenty-Five Years of a Flawed U.S. Foreign Policy.” Orbis 57 no. 4, Autumn 2013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2013.08.010

Frowe, H. The Ethics of War and Peace. Routledge, 2022.

Goldstein, J. “U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies.” New York Times, 20 September 2015. Retrieved 5 May 2024 from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html

Katt, M. “Blurred Lines: Cultural Support Teams in Afghanistan.” Joint Force Quarterly 75, no. 4. October 2014. Retrieved 5 May 2024 from https://ndupress.ndu.edu/JFQ/Joint-Force-Quarterly-75/Article/577569/blurred-lines-cultural-support-teams-in-afghanistan/

Mondloch, C. “Bacha Bazi: An Afghan Tragedy.” Foreign Policy, 28 October 2013. Last retrieved on 4 May 2024 from https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/10/28/bacha-bazi-an-afghan-tragedy/

Orend, Brian. “Jus Post Bellum: The Perspective of a Just-War Theorist.” Leiden Journal of International Law 20, no. 3, September 2007. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0922156507004268

Wensierski, P. "East Germany thrived on snitching lovers, fickle friends and envious schoolkids." Australian Financial Review, 23 December 2015. Last retrieved 5 May 2024 from https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/stasi-snitches-all-around-records-reveal-true-extent-of-telling-on-others-20151116-gkzu44

Attack on the Motor Tanker Mercer Street

Descriptive Analysis

On 29 July 2021, the Motor Tanker Mercer Street was attacked twice by Iranian drones while operating in the Gulf of Oman. A third drone attack on 30 July 2021 created a 6-foot-wide hole in the pilot house, resulting in the death of the tanker’s captain and a security officer. The USS Ronald Reagan and USS Mitscher rendered aid. Evidence was collected by an American Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, and a multinational team performed forensic analysis on the debris.[1]

From an agency collaboration perspective, investigations, such as the one completed for this attack, are complicated by the multiple nations operating and crewing the vessel. In the case of the Mercer Street, the ship was flagged under Liberia, was owned by the Japanese, and managed by an Israeli company. The ship’s captain was Romanian, and the security officer killed was British.

This multi-national vessel operation is certainly not unique to the Mercer Street – a February 2024 report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development explained the situation as follows:

A typical ship may be built in the Republic of Korea, crewed by Filippino [sic] seafarers recruited through a crewing agency based in Cyprus, owned by a German investment fund, technically inspected by an Indian classification society, registered under the flag of the Marshall Islands, insured by a protection and indemnity club in Norway, fuelled [sic] at a bunkering station in Singapore and operated by liner shipping company in Denmark.[2]

Root Cause Analysis

Use of military forces against merchant ships operating in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea areas have gone back at least to the Tanker Wars of 1984 – 1988. This involved attacks on merchant vessels operating in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman by both Iran and Iraq. During that time, 411 ships were attacked, 239 of which were oil tankers[3].

The attack on the Mercer Street was a continuation of Iraq’s policy of harassing any vessel not bound for an Iraqi port. It is a form of low-intensity conflict aimed at countries opposed to Iran, or at least not aligned with Iran.

The Mercer Street was attacked primarily because it was operated by Zodiac Maritime, Ltd., an Israeli company. Other recently attacked ships[4], such as the TRF Moss and the oil tanker Richmond Voyager, are either US-owned or have no clear ownership-ties with Israel or America. These attacks have led vessels to set their Automatic Identification System messages to read “norelationtoisrael” or “allchinesecrew.”[5]

Implication Analysis

The Iranian and Iranian-backed Houthi attacks in these two gulfs, together with Somali pirate attacks, is making commercial shipping in the entire area cost prohibitive. As such, traffic that once passed through the Suez Canal is now routed around the Cape of Good Hope[6].

Shift in shipping routes from the Suez Canal to the Cape of Good Hope, from UNCTAD, “Navigating Troubled Waters”

Revenue generated by the Suez Canal constituted 2.3 percent of Egypt’s GDP in 2023. This has dropped 40% because of Iranian-backed piracy[7]. In addition, foreign trade in East African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, and Sudan have also decreased[8].

Anticipation Analysis

From the time of the Mercer Street attack, Iran has continued harassing and/or attacking merchant vessels operating in the Gulf of Omar and the Gulf of Aden, either directly or via Yemen’s Houthi rebels. It is expected that these attacks will continue in response to ongoing Israeli operations against the Gaza Strip.

The economic losses to Egypt and East African countries can lead to political destabilization of those countries. The rerouting of traffic around the Cape of Good Hope adds additional transport time, fuel costs, and crew costs to the shipped goods.

Foot Notes

[1] USCENTCOM. “U.S. Central Command Statement on the Investigation into the Attack on the Motor Tanker Mercer Street.”

[2] UNCTAD, “Navigating Troubled Waters”

[3] N/A. “Strait of Hormuz.”

[4] N/A, “U.S. Prevents Iran from Seizing Two Merchant Tankers in Gulf of Oman.”

[5] Duggal & Haddad, “Mapping the Red Sea attacks.”

[6] UNCTAD, “Navigating Troubled Waters”

[7] Dom Magli, “Red Sea crisis triggers 40 per cent drop in Suez Canal revenues.”

[8] Vreÿ & Blaine, “Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean Attacks Expose Africa’s Maritime Vulnerability.”

Bibliography

Duggal, H. & Haddad, M. “Mapping the Red Sea attacks: How Houthi attacks on one of the world’s main maritime trade routes have impacted international trade.” Interactive Al Jazeera, 22 February 2024. Last retrieved 2 May 2024 from https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2024/mapping-red-sea-shipping-attacks/

Magli, D. “Red Sea crisis triggers 40 per cent drop in Suez Canal revenues.” Port Technology International, 15 January 2024. Last retrieved on 2 May 2024 from https://www.porttechnology.org/news/red-sea-crisis-triggers-40-per-cent-drop-in-suez-canal-revenues/

N/A. “U.S. Prevents Iran from Seizing Two Merchant Tankers in Gulf of Oman.” U.S. Naval Forces Central Command Public Affairs, 5 July 2023. Retrieved 1 May 2024 from https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/3448330/us-prevents-iran-from-seizing-two-merchant-tankers-in-gulf-of-oman/

N/A. “Strait of Hormuz: Accessing the threat to oil flows through the Strait.” Strauss Center, August 2008. Retrieved 2 May 2024 from https://www.strausscenter.org/strait-of-hormuz-tanker-war/

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. “Navigating Troubled Waters: Impact to Global Trade of Disruption of Shipping Routes in the Red Sea, Black Sea and Panama Canal”. UNCTAD Rapid Assessment, February 2024. Retrieved 2 May 2024 from https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/osginf2024d2_en.pdf

USCENTCOM. “U.S. Central Command Statement on the Investigation into the Attack on the Motor Tanker Mercer Street.” U.S. Central Command Press Release, 6 August 2021. Retrieved 1 May 2024 from https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/2722418/us-central-command-statement-on-the-investigation-into-the-attack-on-the-motor/

Vreÿ, F. & Blaine, M. “Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean Attacks Expose Africa’s Maritime Vulnerability.” Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 9 April 2024. Retrieved 2 May 2024 from https://africacenter.org/spotlight/red-sea-indian-ocean-attacks-africa-maritime-vulnerability/

Boko Haram Kidnappings

It cannot be said that education is a human right, as it implies an obligation on others to provide it. Warfare and certain ideologies do interrupt the process of education, however. An egregious example of this were the schoolgirl kidnappings in Chibok, Nigeria.

This kidnapping was committed by the Boko Haram, an Islamist group that mostly operates in northeast Nigeria, but is also active in Cameroon, Chad, Mali, and Niger. On the night of 14 – 15 April 2014, 276 female students were kidnapped from a government school by them. The students were prime targets for two reasons: they were mostly Christians, and they were females. Islamist organizations have “problems” with both groups.

The school was closed before the kidnappings due to security concerns, but the students remained to complete their final exams[1].

The assault on the school was well-organized. It consisted of three elements: security, support, and assault elements[2]. The support element held Nigerian forces in place while the security element provided perimeter security. Finally, the assault element loaded the students onto trucks. The trucks then departed for nearby nature preserves where the Boka Haram had established compounds.

By US Army - Threat Tactics Report: Boko Haram

Fifty-seven students escaped immediately by jumping from the trucks. Later, others were rescued sporadically by the Nigerian Armed Forces. Since the kidnapping, the girls have been used in hostage exchanges. As of April 2024, 82 students are still missing[3].

It is interesting to note that as the trucks were driving towards Chibok, people from other villages called Chibok to let them know that the Boko Haram were coming[4]. Unfortunately, they didn’t have Minutemen to respond.

Footnotes

[1] Adewunmi, et. al. “Nigeria’s mass kidnapping: the vital questions answered.”

[2] TRADOC, “Threat Tactics Report: Boko Haram.”

[3] Stephanie Busari, “They were kidnapped from a boarding school 10 years ago. Hear their stories.”

[4] Adewunmi, et. al. “Nigeria’s mass kidnapping: the vital questions answered.”

Bibliography

Adewunmi, et. al. “Nigeria’s mass kidnapping: the vital questions answered.” The Guardian, 7 May 2014. Last retrieved 2 May 2014 from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/nigeria-boko-haram-mass-kidnapping-vital-questions

Busari, S. “They were kidnapped from a boarding school 10 years ago. Hear their stories.” CNN, 14 April 2024. Retrieved 2 May 2024 from https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/13/africa/chibok-girls-ten-years-as-equals-intl-cmd/index.html

Omeni, A. “The Chibok Kidnappings in North-East Nigeria: A Military Analysis of Before and After.” Small Wars Journal, 11 April 2017. Retrieved 2 May 2024 from https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-chibok-kidnappings-in-north-east-nigeria-a-military-analysis-of-before-and-after

TRADOC. “Threat Tactics Report: Boko Haram”. TRADOC G-2 ACE Threats Integration, October 2015. Retrieved 2 May 2024 from https://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-BokoHaram.pdf

The Niños Héroes of the Battle of Chapultepec: A Jus in Bello Analysis

Introduction

This paper examines the deaths of six military cadets, the Niños Héroes (boy heroes), who died during the Mexican-American War at the Battle of Chapultepec. The justness of these deaths primarily depends on the Doctrine of Discrimination, so a detailed analysis of that doctrine is performed. The deaths are then evaluated according to this doctrine. Finally, the relation between the justness (or unjustness) of those deaths is related to the justness of the Mexican-American War as a whole.

By Adolphe Jean-Baptiste Bayot/ Carl Nebel - Published in the 1851 book
"The War Between the United States and Mexico, Illustrated".

Historical Background

The Battle of Chapultepec occurred during the Mexican-American War on 12-13 September 1847. It is named after Chapultepec Castle, a fortification standing outside Mexico City. The castle was originally constructed during the time Mexico was a territory of Spain, and it served as a summer residence for the viceroy of the colonial administration. The castle’s use changed over the years, and at the time of the battle, it was the site of a military academy.

The task of defending Mexico City from the Americans fell on General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. He had 25,000 men at his command but positioned most of them to the south of the city, where he expected the Americans to attack. General Winfield Scott decided that the best approach to capture the city was to capture the castle, which lies to the west.

The battle started at dawn on the 12^th with an artillery barrage that caught Santa Anna completely unaware. He was unable to move his forces to the castle and was only able to watch from afar as General Nicolás Bravo attempted to defend it. On the second day Scott switched to an infantry attack. Meanwhile, Bravo’s men dug trenches but were unable to oppose the Americans. General Bravo ordered his men to retreat then surrendered on the morning of the 13^th.

During the battle, cadets from the military academy at Chapultepec Castle participated in the fighting. When the order came to retreat, five of the cadets and one of the cadets’ lieutenants continued fighting. Five of them were shot, and one of the cadets jumped from the castle’s roof, wrapped in the Mexican flag to keep it from being captured by the Americans. These cadets became known as the Niños Héroes, the boy heroes. They ranged in age from 13 to 19.

In terms of Just War Theory, the deaths of these cadets would seem to run afoul of the Principle of Discrimination. Does it?

The Principle of Discrimination and a Practical Extension

Assuming that on both sides of a war there are innocents and non-innocents, the Principle of Discrimination stipulates that non-innocents are the only legitimate targets of attack. Just War Theorists then moves discussion from innocents vs non-innocents to legitimate vs illegitimate targets. Still, an additional requirement is required: the judgement whether an individual is a legitimate target must be easy to make. This is important from an eminently practical perspective: in situations like urban combat, it is highly likely that a warfighter will encounter both legitimate and illegitimate targets in very close proximity. A warfighter must be able to make this distinction rapidly, and JWT requires that it be made accurately.

The International Committee of Red Cross, among other agencies, has devised conditions to rapidly determine whether someone is a legitimate target. The conditions are:

• He wears a uniform
• He belongs to a hierarchical organization
• He’s carrying a weapon
• He is not hors de combat

A combatant is hors de combat if either¹:

• He is in the power of an adverse party (e.g., a prisoner who is not attempting escape)
• He clearly expresses an intention to surrender
• He is wounded to the point of being combat-ineffective.

The primary beneficiary of uniforms are civilians: “Combatants, when engaged in military operations, have to distinguish themselves from the civilian population to protect it from the effects of hostilities and to restrict warfare to military objectives.²” The uniform also allows the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate targets to be more abstract, meaning that it allows us to think about potential targets in terms of their ideology instead of their race, for example. It isn't clear whether the ICRC intended this or if it is just an unintended consequence.

The wearing of a uniform and the carrying of a weapon are obvious markers, and being hors de combat is frequently obvious, but what about belonging to a hierarchical organization? Determine whether a potential enemy is indeed a member of such an organization requires looking for unit insignia, rank markers, as well as behavior - saluting, for example.

Reasons for the importance of belonging to a hierarchical organization are hard to come by, but perhaps it can be justified as follows: belonging to such an organization means that the combatant is not a completely autonomous moral agent - he can be acting on orders - and this precludes rational discussion with said combatant. Of course, being in a war zone would already preclude rational discourse!

The ICRC classification doesn't match our expectations for who counts as a legitimate target, however. Most people would identify munition plant workers and weapon system researchers as legitimate and not innocent.

Legitimate Targets and Types of Warfare

Frowe compares the process of catching the right targets with the casting of a net³. If cast too wide, then all combatants plus some non-combatants would be legitimate targets. If cast too narrow, then some (but not all) combatants are considered legitimate, and no non-combatants are legitimate targets.

The example of the munitions plant worker and weapons researcher imply that we should cast the net wide. Catching all combatants has problems all its own, however: restricting discussion only to military personnel, there are some personnel who are certainly legitimate targets (e.g., front-line members, the “teeth,” who are armed and standing 10 feet away), and some whose legitimacy can be brought into question (e.g., logistic support personnel, the “tail,” operating behind the lines).

This would imply not a binary distinction, but rather a continuum of legitimate “targetability” or “target-worthiness”.

Even allowing for a sliding scale there are still complications: in traditional warfare such as the two World Wars, front-line combatants are considered the most target-worthy⁴. In asymmetric wars such as the Revolutionary War, logistic support personnel are usually more target-worthy⁵. Thus, the conditions needed for being a legitimate target depends on the type of war currently being fought.

A "Realist War Theory" Critique and Approach

An assumption that needs to be checked is the "innocence" of non-combatants. It may be more accurate to call them "supporters" or "enablers," or at least some of them. Their innocence is problematic because of the way the general citizenry frequently gets along in a totalitarian country such as Imperial Japan or East Germany. When Germany was reunited after the fall of the Berlin Wall, lists of collaborators, informants, and other people who worked with the East German Stasi were released, and those were not short lists!⁶

Combining this analysis of combatants and supporters with the above observation about a continuum of target-worthiness would lead to the following: every person of the enemy country is a legitimate target, and the target-worthiness is prioritized by their capacity to cause harm.

As an aside, the "journalists" who screeched for war, the politicians who clamored for war, and the defense contractors who profit before, during, and after the war make for far better targets than the actual combatants due to the amount of harm they cause. Of course, this can also be argued from a JWT standpoint depending on the grasp of Frowe's net.

Applying the Doctrine to the Niños Héroes

We are now able to evaluate Battle of Chapultepec. The battle itself was a militarily necessity. What about the cadets? According to the customs of many nations, including the US^{7 8} and Canada⁹, cadets are not part of the military¹⁰.

This custom is difficult to justify - cadets would meet the ICRC's conditions for being legitimate targets. A more essential fact is that, depending on the military academy and the number of years an individual was enrolled there, the cadet may have knowledge and skills that exceed a typical front-line combatant - the cadet is lacking experience not training.

Still, assuming we equate target-worthiness with being a member of the enemy military, this custom makes the cadets illegitimate targets.

Another problem is that these cadets were children, and this may be enough for some Just War Theorists to make their targeting unjust. Reflecting this back into the civilian world via Frowe's "domestic analogy," the cadets are akin to the young people that die every weekend in Chicago or Baltimore. Their targeting by gang members or police officers would also be unjust, though it makes the news only when the police are involved.

The moral status of children is of course an enormous issue, something too large to even begin to address here. If the cadets, the children, are being used as human shields, their status would be clear: they would not be legitimate targets, but their deaths can be rationalized by the principle of double effect. But they were active participants, not human shields, and the principle of double effect would not be applicable in this way.

A Realist War Theory would view both issues (that they were cadets and that they were children) simply as follows: doing adult activities makes one into an adult. The training those cadets received makes them into military members (though not exactly members of a country's "primary" military force), and the act of fighting at Chapultepec makes them imminent threats and legitimate targets.

Conclusion

Based on the Principle of Discrimination, the deaths of the cadets in the battle of Chapultepec were unjust: by convention they were non-combatants.

How does the unjustness of their deaths get rolled-up into the justness of the particular battle or into the justness of the whole Mexican-American War? JWT has been used to evaluate the treatment of prisoners, single battles, the use of types of weapons, and whole entire wars, so it should be applicable to individual fatalities as well.

One approach to solving this problem is to use the Principle of Proportionality - the idea that the harm caused to non-combatants by a military action does not exceed the actual or anticipated benefits. The cadets were, technically, non-combatants, and they were certainly harmed. The actual benefit was the capture of the castle. So, while the deaths were unjust, the battle itself was just, all other things being equal.

Patrick Tomlin claims¹¹ it is possible that each and every act of a war can be proportionate but the war as a whole is disproportionate, and that it is also possible for each act to be disproportionate but the whole war is proportionate. If he is correct, then the overall justice of a war is not related to its battles, its constituent parts.

 

Footnotes

1. ICRC Casebook, “Hors de combat.”
2. Toni Pfanner, “Military uniforms and the law of war.”
3. Helen Frowe, The Ethics of War and Peace.
4. I wish to avoid the term “high value” because it has meaning in other military situations.
5. This gives a colorful way of contrasting symmetric and asymmetric warfare: the fighting in traditional wars is teeth-vs-teeth, while in asymmetric wars it is teeth-vs-tails.
6. Peter Wensierski, "East Germany thrived on snitching lovers, fickle friends and envious schoolkids."
7. N/A, “Defense Primer: Military Service Academies.”
8. N/A, “Army ROTC FAQ.”
9. N/A, “The Cadet Program.”
10. Research about the military status of Military cadets was inconclusive, either for today or in 1847.
11. Patrick Tomlin, "Proportionality in War: Revising Revisionism."

 

Bibliography

N/A. “Defense Primer: Military Service Academies.” Congressional Research Service, 2023. Retrieved 27 April 2024 from https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/IF11788.pdf

N/A. “The Cadet Program.” Canadian Cadet Organization, N/D. Retrieved 27 April 2024 from https://www.rangers2799.com/the-cadet-program.html

N/A. “Army ROTC FAQ.” University of Arkansas, N/D. Retrieved 27 April 2024 from https://armyrotc.uark.edu/

Frowe, H. The Ethics of War and Peace. Routledge, 2022.

ICRC Casebook. “Hors de combat.” International Committee of the Red Cross, N/D. Retrieved 27 April 2024 from https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/hors-de-combat

Pfanner, T. “Military uniforms and the law of war.” International Review of the Red Cross 86, no. 853, (March 2004). Retrieved 27 April 2024 from https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/irrc_853_pfanner.pdf

Tomlin, P. "Proportionality in War: Revising Revisionism." Ethics 131, no. 1, (October 2020). https://doi.org/10.1086/709983

Wensierski, P. "East Germany thrived on snitching lovers, fickle friends and envious schoolkids." Australian Financial Review, 23 December 2015. Last retrieved 28 April 2024 from https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/stasi-snitches-all-around-records-reveal-true-extent-of-telling-on-others-20151116-gkzu44

A Review of David Kilcullen’s The Dragons and the Snakes

Kilcullen’s “Dragons and Snakes,” hereafter abbreviated as “D&S,” is quite ambitious: it describes the evolution of warfare during and following the GWOT, arguing that state and non-state actors have undergone coevolution, with the end result that our adversaries’ warfighting techniques have changed in ways our military is currently unable to match.

D&S begins with a quick overview of the vast hinterland that was the time between the end of the Cold War and the earlier parts of the Global War on Terrorism. The important aspect of this overview is the relative sophistication of five of the dominant politicians of that era: Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Vladimir Putin.

When Putin came into office, he inherited the shambles that was Russia after the fall of the Soviets. To rebuild his country, he proposed to Clinton that Russia be allowed to join NATO. Other than the presidents and the prime minister, politicians at the time regarded that proposal somewhere on the spectrum between absurdity and incredulity. None of those politicians recognized what Putin was really doing: in popular vernacular, he was “trolling.”

Putin was taken seriously, with Tony Blair proposing to create a NATO-Russia Council to have Putin’s representatives meet with NATO leaders before making key decisions. Bush proposed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia. After all, Bush said that he “looked the man [Putin] in the eye. I found him very straightforward and trustworthy – I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

Eleven weeks later, Russia sent tanks into Georgia.

The Obama Administration then suggested a “reset” and created a commission to strengthen and expand security cooperation between us and Russia. Russian special forces were trained by US special forces, Russian officers received NATO training, and so on.

Yes, Putin was indeed trolling, and at a masterful level.

Kilcullen then moves into the period starting with the GWOT and leading up to today. Using a metaphor by former CIA Director James Woolsey, the author divides our enemies into “dragons” and “snakes.” The dragons are state actors (in the Westphalian sense) mainly China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The snakes are either collapsing states or non-state actors, principally Islamic terrorist organizations.

All throughout the GWOT, both the dragons and the snakes were keenly interested in our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they were doing two things: observing and evolving.

Observing other countrys' wars is nothing new: the French, British, and Prussians sent observers to watch the Civil War, with interest in tactics, strategies, and technologies. Currently, everyone is watching the Russia-Ukraine war, with keen attention paid to the use of commercial-quality drones and other tactics.

From these observations, two critical events serve to shape the evolution of military thought amongst both the dragons and the snakes: the US invasion of Iraq in 1992, and America’s difficulties in the asymmetric wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The 1992 invasion proved that the US was masterful at a particular style of war: conventional force-on-force battles with integrated land and air operations. China and Russia observed this and deduced that America cannot be dominated using this form of warfare. They also deduced something else: that Americans, in part due to the smashing success of the invasion, had constrained itself into believing that the type of war demonstrated during that invasion was the only type of warfare.

The second observation was the difficulty the US had in fighting insurgent forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as the GWOT switched from being a symmetric to an asymmetric conflict. This was also nothing new, as Russia saw in its own involvement in Afghanistan and during the Chechen Wars. What made the American experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq different was that it was America that was involved: the insurgents were able to hold their own against the same military that won so easily the pre-insurgent phase of the Iraq war. If Russia had suspicions that their losses in Afghanistan and the First Chechen War were due to military inadequacy, then America’s experience, with its preeminent military, dispelled those suspicions.

Faced with this, Russia and China had to evolve, to discover new types of warfare.

The route taken by Russia was to pursue “liminal warfare,” which adds cyber, economic, and psychological tools to the kinetic weapons endemic to conventional warfare. The idea is to operate using those new tools below a threshold (what Kilcullen calls the “response threshold”) that America and other Western nations would resort to conventional warfare. The bulk of the desired outcomes are achieved below this threshold (the luminal stages), and these desired goals are primarily to “shape” not only particular actions of the Unites States but also to provide cover or at least plausible deniability should the response threshold be crossed.

Kilcullen provides numerous examples of liminal warfare in action, the most important one being Russia’s capture of the Crimea in February 2014 – the world didn’t know what Russia was doing until it was too late.

Russia’s new approach to warfare is “vertical” in that the stages of war are cumulative, determined by the extent the US recognizes that clandestine activities occurring and our ability to determine who is performing these acts; Russia attempts to minimize the operational signatures of their operations, move the thresholds, and so on.

In contrast, Kilcullen portrays China’s approach as “horizontal.” China’s approach is to use “unrestricted warfare” as described by Qiao and Liang in their book with the same name. (Kilcullen notes that the title “Unrestricted Warfare” would be better translated as “Warfare Beyond Rules”). Unrestricted warfare uses several non-lethal tactics including international lawfare, economic aid warfare (think Belt and Road Initiative), drug war (fentanyl in particular) and so on. These tactics aren’t used in isolation, instead they use a “diversity of tactics” as Antifa would say. The number of available tactics is what gives unrestricted warfare its horizontal quality.

It is interesting to compare luminal and unrestricted warfare, but it is more illuminating to compare those forms of warfare with the way warfare is conceived in the West. The primary difference is that the West considers warfare to be strictly one involving military action, whereas liminal and unrestricted warfare involve both military and non-military forms of action.

We essentially have a mismatch in the concepts of warfare. There are three consequences to this mismatch:

1. Many of our actions (in particular, economic policies related to international trade) we think of as peace time competition but are considered to be warfare, especially in unrestricted warfare.
2. China and Russia can be engaging in warfare, but we don’t know it and we cannot respond militarily.
3. Because we don’t know we’re being attacked, we cannot predict escalation.

What can be done about all this? How do we fight the ascension of these dragons? With regards to foreign policy, Kilcullen offers several options:

1. Double down - continue interventionalist foreign policy, strengthen our military accordingly, and incorporate new technology along the lines of the Pentagon’s “Third Offset Strategy.”
2. Go with a “managed decline” approach (presumably only regarding foreign policy).
3. Take a Byzantine approach, meaning, delay until something better comes along.

Kilcullen’s recommendations on foreign policy are as follows:

“…return to offshore balancing, disengaging from permanent wars of occupation, ceasing any attempt to dominate rivals or spread democracy by force, and focusing instead on preserving and defending our long-term viability.”

This is very reasonable, except the part about “offshore rebalancing.” Continuing with his recommendations:

“Rather than dominating potential adversaries, our objectives can and should be much more modest: to prevent them from dominating us, to do so at an acceptable and sustainable long-term cost, and to avoid any action that harms the prosperity of and civilizational values that make our societies worth living in.”

Thus, by quitting our “forever wars,” we get a type of peace dividend: we get a chance to focus on societal resilience and attempt to reconcile our current domestic political differences.

D&S is extremely readable, even by someone lacking deep knowledge of foreign policy. The most valuable part for me was the discussion of liminal warfare. My only criticism is that it didn’t go into sufficient depth on liminal maneuvers. This is a minor complaint, and quite understandable given the text’s wide scope.

 

Bibliography

Chase, S. “Marketing Violence: A Closer Look at the “Diversity of Tactics” Slogan.” Minds of the Movement Blog, 2017. Retrieved 28 April 2024 from https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/blog_post/marketing-violence-closer-look-diversity-tactics-slogan/

Kilcullen, D. “The Evolution of Unconventional Warfare.” Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies 2 (no. 1), 2019.

Kilcullen, D. The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West. Oxford University Press, 2020.

Nadeau, R. "Justus Scheibert and International Observation of the Civil War". The Gettysburg Compiler, 2014. Retrieved 28 April 2024 from https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2014/12/12/justus-scheibert-and-international-observation-of-the-civil-war/

Qiao & Liang. Unrestricted Warfare. Shadow Lawn Press, 1999. Retrieved 28 April 2024 from https://www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf

Comparing Effective Military and Civilian Intelligence Teams

Introduction

The following notes are based on my experiences and observations while working to document and limit the damage caused by Antifa during the fiery but mostly peaceful riots of the 2020 “Summer of Love.” I participated in three “operations”:

1. Tracking the evolution of CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle, Washington
2. Tracking the riots in Philadelphia
3. Tracking a major Antifa/BLM protest in one of the suburbs of Philadelphia

These operations contained elements of military intelligence, police investigation, private investigation, and corporate competitor analysis but do not fit easily into any one of those categories. However, there is much in common with military intelligence when it comes to building an effective team to monitor those riots.

The organization and processes described here are not limited to monitoring Antifa but are also applicable to the investigation of child predators and human traffickers.

The purpose here is to examine how these civilian intelligence teams operate, with the long-term goal of adapting the aspects that make military intelligence teams effective to these civilian analogs.

Goal of an Effective Intelligence Team

The goal of an effective intelligence team is to develop relevant, accurate, timely, and actionable information. This goal is realized by three “information paths” within the team:

1. Incoming data (raw and unverified – could be called “pre-intelligence”)
2. Analyses by individuals and teams to convert this data into intelligence (verify, deconflict, and determine significance)
3. “Upward” movement as intelligence is organized and unified with other sources and becomes actionable.

These aren’t one-way paths, however – there must be a cycle that starts with evaluating a piece of information’s accuracy, classifying it according to relevance, and using that intel to drive follow-up investigations.

Qualities of Good Intelligence Team Members

Besides initiative, the most important quality that all team members must have is a sense of objectivity, which means that the team member:

• Can distinguish reality from hearsay and from political bias
• Can judge the quality of incoming data
• Is self-aware enough to know what he/she does not know
• Has a bearing of “effective professionalism”

A skill any analyst must possess is the ability to translate intelligence goals into relevant collection and analysis tasks. This doesn’t come naturally to many people and must be developed through experience and mentorship.

The team member must possess appropriate technical skills, such as using GIS, working with OSINT sources, having the ability to infiltrate, etc. Infiltration (either physical or on-line) is not something everyone is willing to do and requires the ability to be inconspicuous while still making important observations. We found that for best results – in general and not just for infiltration - the team member’s skills and interests must be matched to his role.

Finally, team members must understand and practice excellent OPSEC. This need was demonstrated when one of the teams tracking the riots in Philadelphia (not mine!) decided to live-stream their operations on YouTube. This allowed Antifa supporters to locate the exact hotel room from which they were operating in under 30 minutes.

Leader’s Role

The leader of an intelligence team must be able to identify intelligence gaps and set goals to fill those gaps, and clearly communicate those goals to the analysts. He must prevent team members from “going down the wrong rabbit holes” – performing investigations on topics or individuals not clearly related to the goals. He must act as a sounding board while providing analysts with a healthy dose of skepticism when appropriate.

The leader must be able to package-up the results of the team into recommendations and supporting documents for action by the relevant authorities. In the case of Antifa, child predators, or human traffickers, those authorities are law enforcement agencies.

Leadership Style

The sociologist Douglas McGregor described two broad styles of leadership, which he labeled Theory X (lack of trust in subordinates which leads to micromanagement) and Theory Y (confidence in subordinate’s ability to be self-motivated)¹. McGregor recommends Theory Y, though it can devolve into “servant leadership.”

A different way of looking at Theory Y are the leadership styles known as "mission command" and the older German concept of "Auftragstaktik." Mission command has officially been a part of the US military command doctrine since the 1980s, though was practiced much earlier², and states that a good commander sets the mission and constraints (e.g. time bounds), and lets subordinates choose the means to accomplish the mission. Auftragstaktik³ is broader and more fundamental than mission command because it is a type of military professionalism based on three virtues: “knowledge, independence, and the joy of taking responsibility.” Mission command can thus be seen as a corollary of Auftragstaktik.

Mission command and Auftragstaktik are both excellent and appropriate styles for leading effective intelligence teams, either civilian or military.

Establishing a Team

Once a group of individuals comes together to perform intelligence activities, and after basic groundwork (meeting times, communication methods, etc.) is laid, there are three tasks that must be performed: creating an area study, identifying and developing information sources, and making contacts with law enforcement.

An area study is packaged information about the team’s geographical area of interest. Besides physical aspects (physical terrain, weather, transportation systems, and critical infrastructure), the area study must include economic, political, and cultural factors (businesses, governance, law enforcement and security agencies, and political leanings). Finally, it must include a threat overview - in this case that would be information about the local Antifa members and activities. This will involve performing a RAFT (relationships, actors, functions, tensions) analysis⁴ on Antifa.

One assumption commonly made when doing an area study is that the adversary’s command structure lies within the area of interest. Groups such as Antifa are decentralized organizations, and human traffickers are sometimes trans-national, so a RAFT analysis not constrained by geographic area is an invaluable supplement to the traditional area study.

Certain aspects of the area study will stay constant (e.g. physical terrain) whereas others (e.g. Antifa membership) will change, sometimes rapidly, and it is important to update the area study as needed.

The new team must also identify and develop information sources. For direct human sources this includes recruiting and vetting informants, determining their accuracy and reliability, and “handling.” There are also tasks needed for indirect sources: finding mainstream media news sources and online video streams that provide on-the-spot coverage, locating and infiltrating relevant chat rooms and other messaging systems, etc. Even GIS requires setup: for example, finding and importing the correct map layers for some geographic information systems can be an involved process.

Social media is yet another source of information. Antifa members like to announce their proclivities, the larger the forum the better. Once an Antifa member’s account is located on a social media platform, it is easy to find his/her followers and monitor their posts. This is very valuable, and for remote intel operations it is one of the few available roads to inside information.

In anticipating the creation of actionable information, it is necessary to identify the consumers, those who will act on that information (after they perform their own analysis), and this usually means law enforcement agencies. Given the “hands off” approach many law enforcement agencies and district attorneys take with Antifa, it may be necessary to “shop around” to find the proper consumer. Prosecuting child predators is something most law enforcement agencies are willing to do; the record on human trafficking seems to be mixed.

Specialized Intelligence Teams

There are types of military intelligence teams, such as Female Engagement Teams, Culture Support Teams, Human Terrain Teams, and High Value Target Teams, that use specialized approaches when confronting adversaries.

Human Terrain Teams

Human Terrain Teams consist of sociologists and cultural anthropologists used to advise military personnel on social norms and taboos within a target population⁵. There really is no civilian analog to HTTs – private or police investigators cannot afford to maintain a staff of social scientists, and any attempt to provide cultural interpretations of events involving child predators or human traffickers is nothing but rationalizing evil.

The other types of teams do have certain parallels in civilian intelligence operations.

Female Engagement Teams

In conflict zones in which women are marginalized, like in Afghanistan, Female Engagement Teams (FETs) were used to gain the trust and confidence of Afghani women⁶. They were initially controversial because they involved putting female soldiers or Marines into combat situations. The effectiveness of FETs and the related Culture Support Teams were brought into question because the FET were not able to maintain prolonged contact with the female population of any particular village⁷. Further, FETs required a male contingency to provide security.

In civilian and law enforcement intelligence teams, women can play several specialized roles. In child predator stings, they can serve as “prey,” specifically in the time immediately prior to in-person contact by the predators. In operations to disrupt human trafficking or prostitution rings, women go undercover with the goals of observing and recording evidence of wrongdoings by the ring leaders, and (maybe) getting prostitutes to disaffect.

These civilian and law enforcement intelligence operations are more successful than FETs for several reasons: first, limited time of contact is not an issue with child predator or human trafficking operations – contact is maintained only as long as it is needed to catch the predator or disrupt the traffickers; there is no need to maintain contact in perpetuity. Second, there is no need to provide ongoing security by male team members - security is supplied only as-needed.

Another reason for the success of undercover female officers is their expected behavior while undercover: by their actions, undercover officers seek to raise standards by eliminating criminals, and there is no attempt to be “culturally sensitive” to the predators and traffickers. The same cannot be said for FET members – their presence is designed to minimize “cultural threat” while still hoping to win female hearts and minds. This was demonstrated by the requirements that FET members have male escorts and that they always keep their heads covered.

High-value Target Teams

High-value Target Teams (HTTs) are interagency operations that use network-based targeting, combine intelligence with operational capability, and employ counterterrorist and counterinsurgency methodologies in unison. The idea is to use intelligence to find leaders (high-value individuals) in the insurgency network, and then target them with sufficient force and accuracy so that they are eliminated while isolating peaceful civilians from the effects of the elimination⁸. This tactic was credited for success in Iraq in 2007-2008 – by eliminating the most powerful insurgents, the civilian authorities gained the time needed to establish themselves and to dominate the less powerful insurgents.

There is no direct analog of HTTs in civilian intelligence operations, simply because either the operational capability is separated from the intelligence capacity, or (as in situations described above where district attorneys are sympathetic with Antifa) the operational capability is completely absent. There are a few similarities between HTTs and civilian intelligence teams, however. The most obvious one is that both analyze their adversaries’ networks to identify leaders and to seek and exploit vulnerabilities. The other similarities mostly lie in the factors determining team success. In particular, civilian teams are small, have common purpose, are not divided by loyalties to outside agencies.

Comparison and Conclusions

Military and civilian intelligence teams share the goal of gathering valuable, timely, and actionable information about their adversaries. They both use methodologies such as RAFT analysis to organize that information and derive additional intel from it. They face the same problems – vetting sources, distinguishing false leads from actual evidence, identifying intel gaps, contending with rapidly changing intel priorities, maintaining OPSEC, and so on.

Both types of teams have similar organizations (both in terms of personnel and information flows), and their success depends on the effective leadership of competent and enthusiastic team members.

They face similar adversaries: during the GWOT, military intel teams were tasked with gathering information about Islamic extremists; civilian intel teams are needed to gather info on Antifa, child predators, and human traffickers. All these enemies have either no leaders or have a decentralized organization. They are also located and operate within the common population, and so they can “blend in.”

The similarities end there.

Military intelligence teams have the advantage when it comes to available information and resources. Civilian intel teams are limited to OSINT, IMINT, and limited forms of geospatial intelligence. Military intel teams are capable of all that plus SIGINT, MASINT, etc.

Military intelligence teams and civilian intel teams differ in that the former are part of a larger organization (the U.S. military) that legally can and oftentimes does act based on the recommendations from their intel teams. Civilian intel teams are not part of a larger organization, and many district attorneys support and cover for Antifa and similar groups.

Another difference is the quantity of information that is available to each – military intel teams must contend with information overload. Civil intel teams scramble for each bit of knowledge, so in that they are like private investigators. The only situation where the volume of information is remotely comparable is with the firehose of information available from social networks.

Perhaps the most important difference between military intelligence teams and the type of teams described here is that the former is a profession. It has a shared body of knowledge; various schools such as the Joint Military Intelligence Training Center (JMITC) and the United States Army Intelligence Center of Excellence (USAICoE) transmit that knowledge; and it has fictional heroes such as James Bond, Jason Bourne, Ethan Hunt, and even Sterling Archer, to inspire people to enter that vocation. In short, military intelligence has a culture.

Civilian teams have none of that – they come together in an impromptu manner, they must invent/discover the tradecraft needed to accomplish their goals, then they disband only to be reinvented when another group of agitators gains momentum – Hamas protesters, anyone? The closest thing to being an exception are individuals and teams that hunt for child predators and human traffickers. They mostly operate using sting operations, and while the results of these operations are popularized, the implementation details best remain trade secrets. Other than this limited exception, civilian intelligence teams have no means of transmitting their experience, or creating a body of knowledge, or building a culture. It is not a profession, it is an avocation.

Which is the superior institution? In combat situations, military intelligence teams have the wherewithal and experience to be extremely effective. In riot control and law enforcement situations, civilian intelligence teams are better in at least one aspect: it is more difficult to turn civilian intel teams inwards towards mass surveillance.

2020 Antifa/BLM Riots. Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images

Footnotes

1. Mind Tools Content Team, “Theory X and Theory Y: Understanding Peoples’ Motivations.”
2. Andrew Kiser, Mission Command: The Historical Roots of Mission Command in the US Army.
3. Donald Vandergriff, “How the Germans defined Auftragstaktik”
4. Dale Eikmeier, “Design for Napoleon’s Corporal”
5. Ben Connable, “Human Terrain System is Dead, Long Live … What?”
6. Megan Katt, “Blurred Lines: Cultural Support Teams in Afghanistan”
7. Ibid.
8. Christopher Lamb & Evan Munsing, “Secret Weapon: High-value Target Teams as an Organizational Innovation”

Bibliography

Connable, B. “Human Terrain System is Dead, Long Live … What?” Military Review, January-February 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/January-February-2018/Human-Terrain-System-is-Dead-Long-Live-What

Eikmeier, D. “Design for Napoleon’s Corporal.” Small Wars Journal, 27 September 2010. Last retrieved on 25 April 2024 from https://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/557-eikmeier.pdf

Kiser, A. J. Mission command: The historical roots of mission command in the US Army. Defense Technical Information Center, May 2015. Last retrieved on 24 April 2024 from https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1001514.pdf

Lamb, C. & Munsing, E. “Secret Weapon: High-value Target Teams as an Organizational Innovation.” Institute for National Strategic Studies, Strategic Perspectives, No. 4, 2011. Retrieved on 24 April 2024 from https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/stratperspective/inss/Strategic-Perspectives-4.pdf

Mind Tools Content Team. “Theory X and Theory Y: Understanding Peoples’ Motivations.” Mind Tools website, N/D. Retrieved on 25 April 2024 from https://www.mindtools.com/adi3nc1/theory-x-and-theory-y

Vandergriff, D. E. “How the Germans defined Auftragstaktik: What mission command is – and – is not” Small Wars Journal, 21 June 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/how-germans-defined-auftragstaktik-what-mission-command-and-not