'It is not surprising actionable intelligence is an elusive thing', says Shircliffe (FBI)

James Shircliffe Jr. of the Counter Intelligence Division at the FBI admits the intelligence community faces various challenges with regards to shifting asymmetric threats. In this IDGA exclusive Shircliffe reveals the problem with asymmetric threats nowadays are that no one knows which represents the greatest threat. The interview also explores the reason why ‘there is no technical solution’ with regards to finding and training operators and analysts. [eventPDF] Speak to how intelligence requirements have changed in light of shifting asymmetric threats? The first thing anyone in the intelligence community has noticed is the number and type of requirements has proliferated to the point where we actually need whole layers of bureaucracy to manage their creation and implementation, and to review how well they are being met. It can be quite challenging just making sure you are current on all the different collection and analytic production requirements. Because, despite the increased number of requirements the actual substance of what the writer of the requirement, and presumably the decision maker, wants is increasingly vague. How is that? Well, I am not old enough to have worked against the Soviets or the Warsaw Pact, but I've worked with the guys who worked back then. They would get collection requirements in the nature of "How many ICBM silo doors do you see? How many doors are open?" or "how many T-76s are pointed at V Corp? Are they in their combat staging positions?" now the real advantage to that type of situation is that you can practice and hone your skills against the same target using the same tools and report numerous times to decision makers who can provide feedback if what you are reporting or collecting doesn't fit the true intent of the requirement.??? The problem with asymmetric threats nowadays are that no one knows which represents the greatest threat, either in likelihood to strike versus damage if they do strike. Which means they have to be prioritized, but it is like trying to rank a list of used cars when you’ve never seen them, you might not have the make and model, the prices change constantly, and cars are being added and dropped constantly. While that type of situation is daunting it is not impossible to deal with if you know about cars, or are in the used car business, you just develop a sense for these things. With asymmetric threats some of the groups you look at are just so difficult to pin down because they are from parts of the world, cultures, or in the case of cyber, using a technology we don’t know the extent of, that it would take you years to get to understand how the threat ticks. There are just so few resources you better hope the threat you picked to study was the right. And, on the HR side they move analysts and collectors around amongst topics and emergency deployments, not to mention job attrition that it is impossible to build up deep institutional knowledge. ?So when someone gets these intelligence requirements, and they can be long, they are written vaguely to encourage a collector to collect anything on a threat. Because the analysts and decision makers just don’t know enough about the threat to be more precise, which also puts them in a bad position to evaluate whether a collector is giving them what they want. Because any obscure data element might be the key piece to the puzzle they are trying to solve, but that makes it real difficult to plan collection campaigns. Except for that fact that if you wait a little while some new requirement on the latest threat flavor of the year will come out and you will have to re-tool. I’ll give you a hypothetical example. Let us say a decision maker puts out a requirement for anything involving Al-Qaeda eating habits. An analyst can see that and write a 20 page dissertation on the cuisine made and the table arrangements used.? What you will find out is there was actually an operations team who is about to hit a camp during dinner time and needed to know when most of the camp would be in one place eating? Do High Value Targets (management) eat with the common terrorists or will they be somewhere else? How would recognize an Al-Qaeda kitchen? Is it kept close to the dining facilities, which is not always the case? Do kitchens represent good entry points or exit routes, or are the filled with women and children that can’t be shot to avoid a diplomatic incident? Knowing how a terrorist wants his goat seasoned, will tell you a lot about the nature of the kitchen, it isn’t what someone needed. What type of intelligence strategies are being used to deliver actionable tasks????? The latest trend, and despite my personal disregard for bureaucratic reorganization are fusion cells. Putting collectors, analysts, and operators on the same team together. This isn’t a new idea. You would see versions of these being put together during the Cold War to tackle pet projects of the President or some other high official. But these fusion cells are pushing down to lower levels. I think SOCOM and JSOC really led the way on this one. Though a lot of the ones being put in a headquarter elements don’t have enough of a touch with the operators and risk becoming just another layer of coordinating bureaucracy.? I have to say that I am growing a couple of inter-agency ones, and if you want to do it right it is like growing a plant, because there is no technical solution. Explain what you mean by ‘there is no technical solution’ with regards to finding and training operators and analysts??? Well there seems to be a trend amongst managers who control resources that all they have to do is mix the right number of people, with some servers, a couple terabytes of data, maybe a few UAVs, and bam...instant intelligence support element. And now all he has to do is to wait for the useful and actionable intelligence to role in. I have read some of the technology requirements being put out to industry over the last decade on what operational elements want and a lot of it hovers around two elements: store a lot of data and tell me what is important with as little human involvement as possible. What they basically mean is that they want a computer that will spit out good intelligence no matter what dunder head they stick in the analyst position. To me that is like JSOC saying make me a rifle that is so awesome that no matter who I give it to they will instantly be as god as a Navy SEAL operator. An operator is not his equipment and analyst is not his database. It shows such a disregard for the analyst trade that it is not surprising actionable intelligence is an elusive thing. Please leave a comment below, or send direct to IDGA editor chris.archer@idga.org

'It is not surprising actionable intelligence is an elusive thing', says Shircliffe (FBI)

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