Intelligence in Military Missions: Between Theory and Practice

Abstract

Intelligence is the primary mechanism that military organizations use to generate understanding and its main purpose is to provide information to decision-makers such as commanders that may help illuminate their decision options. This chapter assesses the role of intelligence in military missions, more specifically the counterinsurgency and stabilizations missions that took place in, for example, former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Mali.

The chapter starts by addressing the changing and increasingly complex nature of many of the conflicts from the 1990s onwards. It explores how this has influenced the use of intelligence and presents two distinct schools of thought. The first school of thought, referred to as Jominian intelligence, tries to unravel the operational environment in a systematic way and regards the intelligence challenges as a series of problems with definite solutions. The second school of thought, referred to as Clausewitzian intelligence, argues that the goal of intelligence is to assess uncertainty and reach a deliberate judgment.

The main body of the chapter then analyzes the intelligence process and identifies several of the main intelligence issues within military missions. The intelligence process starts with the direction phase in which policy makers, military commanders, or planners state their needs, often referred to as information requirements. Several issues complicate such direction, including (1) the comprehensive focus of many current military missions, (2) their abstract and ambiguous strategic objectives and expectations, and (3) the military’s unfamiliarity with the area of operations.

In the second phase of the intelligence process, the necessary information is collected. In addition to consulting their archives and databases, military units often have a plethora of means, both technical and human, available to collect information. Cross-cultural competencies are of crucial importance, in particular, during the collection phase.

The third phase of the intelligence process, labeled processing, turns raw data into intelligence. During the processing phase, the data are analyzed in order to gain understanding or insight. This exceeds the registration of events, but includes understanding the meaning of these events as well as their importance.

The fourth and final phase is dissemination of intelligence. Here, the relationship between the producers and consumers of intelligence during military missions is explored. This includes the reasons why consumers sometimes do not fully accept the intelligence they receive.

The chapter concludes with an agenda for research on military intelligence. It calls, for example, for a more eclectic author base; multidisciplinary as well as comparative research; increased attention to oversight, ethics, and open source intelligence; and more emphasis on intelligence within the navy, special forces, and constabulary forces.