This sort of “top-down” intelligence no longer drives today’s operations.5 Instead, current operations produce numerous lower-level information and intelligence reports that higher

headquarters must gather, analyze, and synthesize. The sheer volume of these reports and the depth and breadth of information they provide often exceed the capacity of the intelligence organizations at the various headquarters echelons,particularly at the BCT.

Current COIN operations which the Army is conducting at NE or Kashmir  are local in nature,tackling village by village , valley by valley with the platoons and companies doing most of the work,.Each platoon/company have their own AO , locally fight the insurgents while conducting independent patrols and missions.Most often than not they are operating far from their bases amongst the local population.Now due to this reason , company level tactical units have to do their own intelligence gathering.They do not have access to sophisticate overhead sensors or support from intelligence units at higher headquarters.It is important to note that these are combat soldiers , not intelligence military occupational speciality personnel who have to do on their own the collection , analysis , target nomination and development.This is where the need of an organic small intelligence cell arises.This cell will be staffed by these very same non-int soldiers who are given training in tactical questioning,elicitation , on the spot interrogation,observation and surveillance skills—these are not difficult to learn and do not require detailed knowledge of standard intelligence TTPs……knack against skill being the primary requirement.We ned intelligence-savvy personnel to staff these small organic cells , not intelligence corps personnel.And these soldiers we induct from the very same company to which they belong.

In a wide area of operations , involving a Brigade , companies enabled with their own organic intelligence cells renders the collection capacity as a whole far greater than that what is possible with the limited intelligence detachments/units spread across the North East for example.We now have a much greater quantity of trained personnel , and if as per my earlier paper on NE INT NET where I have suggested creating tactical operations centers TOCs , each catering to a group of Companies/Bn wherein all information is channelized to respective Desk NCOs and then through a LAN/WAN network to a centralized intelligence database covering the whole of NE,then we have a complete intelligence architecture with information flowing bottom-up from these organic cells of the Companies.In essence the conventional intelligence pyramid is now inverted.For non-linear distributed battlespace as against a conventional one , where we are dealing with an highly asymmetric enemy , the intelligence architecture needs to be modified.And the individual soldier  is the key and he can be of any military occupational speciality , basically the infantryman.He is our primary sensor.

Of all the intelligence disciplines which are employed to derive all-source intelligence after fusion of information from sensors characteristic to each discipline,it is HUMINT that offers most of the information.The conventional approach to warfare by the Division no longer works in a COIN environment.Here there is a much more need of HUMINT personnel than technical sensors.It is very important to recognize the fact that the Division has to increase its HUMINT strength.If possible include a HUMINT platoon to support 3-4 companies , or create organic HUMINT platoon for Batallion………..COIST….THE CONCEPT OF EVERY SOLDIER IS AS SENSOR CAN ENABLE THIS…HOW?..SECONDARY COLLECTORS?

Often combat operations at tactical level yield intelligence which have strategic implications.This should be recognized by higher HQ intelligence staff (at strategic levels)and every effort should be made to understand and appreciate the existing situations at district/village levels and not only focus on the national level.

In a nonlinear distributed battlespace we have numerous tactical operations going on , with independent platoons/companies engaged in their own way.Here the mass of information gathered cannot be effectively pushed up to higher HQ , there is little sharing of intelligence information among the units engaged (horizontally—sharing can help a lot….).Point is here intelligence is generated at boot level  and the flow is upward—the intelligence pyramid characteristic of conventional battles becomes inverted.This is where is the need for TOCs…….

Information collected at tactical levels by ground soldiers has assumed yet another significance which affects more advanced technical intelligence collecting platforms in a very positive way.We have GEOINT platforms which conduct the very important task of locating the place where a particular event occurred and the time associated with it.We get access to maps and up-to-date imagery both at higher HQ and tactical levels , made possible by  computer technology and no longer  soldiers and platoon/company commanders have to huddle around making maps before deployment.But here something is missing-or was missing.What about specificity , context  and meaning about these maps , imagery?Some of the content is ofcourse provided by these specialized imagery software after data is collected by GEOINT platforms.Say the focus is on an inhabited area with buildings so we have imagery consisting of colored images of the locality and buildings within it.But then what about the occupants who stay inside those buildings,their affiliations,ethnicity , how long they have been staying there,occupation,antecedents etc? A sort of census data , and now this is practically unfeasible by strategic level intelligence platforms..for this we need the tactical units , and they collect this information while on patrols,cordon and search ops,checkpoints and roadblocks , tactical questioning and interrogation of detained persons/suspects .elicitation from village people/panchayat leaders and observation/surveillance.