FORCE PROTECTION WEBSITE
Battles not War???
CASE STUDY:
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POSSIBLE
TERRORIST ATTACK PROFILES , METHODS TO DETECT , DENY , DETER AND
PREVENT SUCH ATTACKS ON BASES , UNIT AND RECOMMENDATIONS.
Concept of advanced preparedness to prempt enemy attack.
OPERATIONALIZING FORCE PROTECTION INTELLIGENCE.
This
means collecting , managing , disseminating force protection
intelligence products specific to the force protection operations ,
each operation being broken down into manageable sub-operations to
which most relevant intelligence feeds are applied,both operations and
intelligence go hand in hand , two driving forces being always
evident--1)int-led ops and 2)int-driven ops.The latter is the base
commanders stated priority force protection intelligence being
collected and fed to tactical force protection troops and other force
protection systems to achieve mission success while in the former case
operations give rise to generation of further intelligence.
We
talk of ''actionable intelligence".Right?Now who determines that the
information procured is ''actionable''? The commander or decision maker
who will take the ''action''.
So far so good.
Now
say the platoon commander has to breakin a suspected house to flush out
terrorists whose presence in the building collected information
confirms.This is the classic intelligence driven operation example.For
this commander this is actionable intelligence as 'he'' is the one who
will take action..its ''his intent'' and his intent will drive the
operation.And this intent is ''shaped by intelligence'' or did he have
the ''intent right at the beginning before any intelligence came in "???
An important question.
If
his intent is shaped by intelligence feeds , meaning intelligence came
in first then his intent based on the intelligence to move in..well
thats the usual intelligence driven ops.
What
iif one fine morning he is observing the horizon in his field
binoculars , spots a building with no apparent threat marker/attribute
but he feels i have a hunch it can be a good place to hide had i been a
terrorist , to observe this camp without getting detected and use as a
launch pad for any mission.Great..why not test the building?Let me send
in my assault team who can first test the latent security..iassuming
terrorists are there by directing fire at the building..(information
has confirmed the building was deserted long time back by its lawful
occupants).So "action is being taken" to initiate an operation.What if
there is resistance and counterfire? The terrorists are there then , my
hunch was right , thinks the Commander.Fine boys MOVE IN! Secure the
building , take as many prisoners you boys can , capture every possible
information-yielding enemy asset , be it humans for interrogation ,
enemy equipment for exploitation , documents for exploitation.OK
Done.Mission Success.Great ..now put these enemy information yielding
assets to task.Interrogate/Exploit.Done.What did we get JCO?OH..we get
fresh information on further activity of another bunch of terroristsin
a named area further down South.Hey that great.Means we initiate action
and we get intelligence which further leads to action???Now now this is
a different perspective on ''actionable intelligence , buddy?" . We can
take action to get intelligence..we can fight to get more
information..we must be proactive..not reactive..we must ACT TO GET INT.
Thats int-led ops.
(Mind
it , another commander say in a not too distant but not too close
either village may not find previously sent actionable- intelligence to
earlier commander that there are terrorists holed up 100% in the
building (not int led..standard int-driven case) actiuonable in his
case as he is the one who must take action and the intelligence he sees
of no value under present circumstances and does not apply to distant
buildings in his AO.
So? Actionable intelligence is perhaps a misnomer. Or say its definition varies.From commander to commander.
We must structure our ops along both lines..int-driven..and int-led and try to slowly and gradually shift towards the latter.
FORCE PROTECTION FP_____________
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Blue Red
ATTACK PROFILES
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History Hotspots Current Tactics Wpns New?
Charts extrapolated/term detailed here
COIN targeting necessitates overwhelming intelligence from ‘’bottom-up’ for successful kinetic/non-kinetic operations. Hence ground level units need to be trained and tasked with intelligence collection. It is near impossible to dedicate the very few specialized intelligence assets to all the operating forces in the area of operations. Here are the key challenges of bottomup collections:
1. Determining what is important information. Leaders need to determine PIRs for each
mission.
2. Determining where to start – in terms of information or geography. Based upon key
terrain (human and/or geographic).
Conventional operations and COIN/Antiterrorist operations (This can be termed operations against networked criminal enterprises) are different in that the intelligence preparation of the battle space takes into consideration not only threat elements but also the human terrain—that is the local population. Unlike kinetic attack priority in conventional operations (kill/capture) in COIN operations non-kinetic attack modes are often the desired outcome – non-kinetic attacks taking into account civilian community heads, population psychological operations, insurgent targets social network, targeting his social contacts to judge his resultant movements and tracking him to finally locate his cell members or leadership, exploitation of targets other community traits—in effect besides personality targeting we are also concerned with the fact (non-kinetic fires) that units must project the second and third order of effects after they mount any operation. Operations on a population, with which the targeted individual interacts, may have second and third order effects on that targeted individual (e.g. – he may increase communications or flee the area—in the former case SIGINT intercepts can yield a lot of information about his immediate network , if his communications are verbal and physical meetups surveillance will be the preferred tool whereas in the latter case if he flees the area he can be tracked to know his sanctuary—he is bound to contact his team members , move in their hideouts.).All in all kinetic attack fires can yield much more intelligence than just by acquiring battle order intelligence. Only resorting to kinetic fires of kill/capture can never solve an insurgency problem., As the soldiers on the ground are those who are frequently in direct contact with community members (and hence those of them who are affiliates/sympathizers/facilitators of the insurgents) they have the best opportunity to gain intelligence information by conducting tactical questioning (patrols, checkpoints, choke points) or
by casual elicitation methods in normal scenarios.
Later it will be shown that setting up a company level intelligence cell and enabling tactical teams
with intelligence assets gives a major thrust in intelligence collection and also counterintelligence
activities.
There needs to be a change in focus of effort between command levels.
1. Stress should be given to the fact that tactical company and platoon level units
conduct operations with a high degree of success and hence higher levels of command
must push intelligence staff and information down to lowest points of collection (initial
points) , that is the company/battalion levels.
2. At the same time low density high demand ISR assets need to be stretched and
spread across the area of operations to gain a better situational understanding.
With these two initiatives the Command Headquarters will not lose control over its intelligence assets and will neither lose the privilege of gaining situational understanding exclusively. On the contrary it will be able to gain more accurate intelligence inputs. Till so far the intelligence needs of individual ground units or any feedback from them was generally ignored what with the Battalion intelligence officer forwarding the intelligence summary report to higher headquarters with the overall intelligence picture of the area of operations falling under the Battalions jurisdiction.
REQUIREMENT FOR INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION AT UNIT/PLATOON LEVEL:
It is near impossible to allocate specialized intelligence assets to every operating force in the Area of Ops, as such assets are few in number and the fact that majority of the information required for targeting flows ‘’bottom-up’ (that is the lowest level troops) necessitates the creation of intelligence collection units at troop level either organic to the tactical combat ground unit or as a modular unit capable of plugging into any company or unit as per requirements. This fact should be taken seriously into Staff consideration for targeting, particularly in asymmetric type warfare where the network must be targeted and where delivery of fire-power is dependent on very specific intelligence.
