HUMINT CI ARGUMENT

HUMINT is collected information which we term positive intelligence after processing.HUMINT collectors access human sources and multimedia to gain information about enemy intent,composition,disposition,capabilities,table of order and equipment, command control nodes, centers of gravity,leadership,personnel—this is also called Order of Battle when conducted prior to a combat situation. The Commander specifies his intelligence requirements explicitly and going by these requirements , prioritized , human sources,informants,and other human elements possessing information compatible with the said requirements are utilized by application of specific techniques like tactical questioning,debriefing,document exploitation, eliciting and interrogation and reconnaissance and surveillance. The HUMINT collectors are not intelligence operatives with general intelligence education and training but specialists.

Counterintelligence is also a collection oriented discipline like HUMINT but not an intelligence discipline in the strictest sense. It is concerned with enemy intent while HUMNINT is concerned with collection part only so as to satisfy Commanders intelligence requirements in oreder to answer certain information gaps.CI attempts to prevent sabotage,assassination,terrorism,subversive and enemy intelligence activities , deny the enemy access to installations and sensitive information , acts as a protective shield for the Commander by supporting OPSEC and force protection and acts in an advisory capacity recommending countermeasures to enemy intelligence activities.CI is a protection component in the Commanders repository of defensive tactics and techniques and CI also protects the intelligence cycle. Several definitions exclude personnel, physical, document or communications security programs from CI purview , but on close inspection it will be seen that CI invariably is resorted to while implementing force protection and denial/deception measures (information warfare) thus bringing in play the security aspects of personnel , physical,documents.CI support tio physical security , infrastructure, technology protection, military security,humint –all these some way or the other involve those elements that are kept out of general definitions.

Definitions can be very confusing , may render doctrine imperfect and lead to redundancy. For example the Army tends to maintain a general perspective on threat—statements like our forces are prepared to deter /attack/defend against a wide spectrum of threats. Ranging from criminal activity in our jurisdiction which may abet our main enemy, terrorism , subversion to small wars, wars and battles. Now this generalized concept is fine in that we can have several security programs , each tending to one specific thwart type in the entire spectrum. But the disadvantage in this approach is we cannot focus on the main threat , say terrorism , and as security concepts like force protection, deception operations, physical security, military security,etc all have certain elements in common we land up with redundant programs designed to handle these security concerns. For example antiterrorism and force protection both have in common physical security as a passive defensive subcomponent where the installation critical points are protected after vulnerability assessments and red teaming. The same subcomponent is the major component in a physical security program. Thus there occurs good redundancy if we do not have a focused view of the threat and counter threat measures become diffused over the broad spec trum.

The same goes with the definition of intelligence and CI.Or rather I should say the general perspectives held by most Commanders and even intelligence officers.

The main idea is to remove uncertainty and gain a decision advantage. This should be the prime objective of the Commander.HUMINT and CI are both shaping operations but with a critical difference.HUMINT shapes the Commanders view of the battle space by providing him accurate intelligence about enemy order of battle. Plus other information requirements when ops are in progress.CI on the other hand penetrates the enemy commanders decision cycle and shapes his views ‘’like the way’’ our Commander desires by denying the enemy commander access to our operations, plans and information systems , and using offensive methods like penetration , infiltration and also denial/deception operations. Both shaping operations have one thing in common as goal. To act as force enabler. To heighten the Commanders situational understanding. In other words to gain that ‘’decisive ‘’ advantage. .To get a ‘’positional’’ advantage. HUMINT shapes the "Blue" forces' understanding of the "Red" forces while CI affects the Red forces' knowledge of Blue forces.
HUMINT shapes the understanding of the ‘’Blue forces’’ with respect to the ‘’Red forces’’ whole CI does the reverse. True both use several techniques which are in common like interrogation and other low level source operations but going by what has been discussed CI is not HUMINT and not in the least a subset of humint. Being a subset would mean CI operations would be counter-humint only. But CI looks beyond that , by conducting offensive operations , denial and deception operations , exploiting enemy intelligence activities ,neutralizing them through collection of evidence and subsequent prosecution for national security crimes, and supporting tactical and theater operations by feeding inputs toi the decision cycles. Thus we see CI goes far beyond Couinter-Humint operations.

Doctrinally, CI is a functional area that obtains and consumes information from all sources concerning an adversary's intelligence activities (see Figure 3). Some believe that CI is a sub discipline of HUMINT. However, if that were true, CI would only focus on counter-HUMINT operations. To provide the commander and senior decision-maker with the right intelligence, CI must look beyond HUMINT to determine the adversary threat. CI personnel detect and identify adversary intelligence activities by planning and conducting collection missions and analyzing information collected from all sources. The Army's departmental CI organization executes operations to exploit adversary intelligence activities and gather additional information, support theater and tactical objectives, and set the conditions for neutralizing the effects of adversary intelligence services. Army CI agents conduct investigations to gather the evidence required to neutralize a threat intelligence service and prosecute individuals for national security crimes, such as espionage. As CI entities execute the functions of collection, operations, investigation, and analysis, commanders receive intelligence vital to their force protection programs.

Interrelationship

CI also provides positive intelligence about the enemy as a byproduct of its operations.CI and HUMINT operations overlap in that very similar techniques are often used. In fact in tactical operations a mix of HUMINT and CI operators plus a linguist carry out tactical humint operations where the roles of both are more overlapping and confusion arises when either may operate like the other. We should not always justify humint source operations..this leads to the mistaken impression that CI only lends support to HUMINT and has no other function and that HUNMINT and CI are the same thing.NO.Whereas HUMINT focuses on the enemy’s organization,composition,capabilities and decision making without any focus on the intent of collection , only collecting all require information laid down in the commanders prioritized intelligence requirements order , and reporting it through proper channels (and here full stop) CI will go much further , exploiting , neutralizing the enemy intelligence activities or doing both…CI is concerned with enemy ‘’INTENT’’.HUMINT focuses on the enemy’s decision making cycle to gain information for the Commander whereas CI attempts to ‘’INFLUENCE’’ that decision cycle and shape it the way we want it in order to achieve winning objectives. Thus the HUMINT operative tasking end after detecting and identifying enemy intelligence activities while the CI agents tasks begin afresh.

From all this discussion we can derive two things:

1.HUMINT and CI are different.CI is not a subset of HUMINT.

2.As HUMINT and CI have many similar lines of operation , if both can be combined to satisfy only tactical requirements , not theater or national-level requirements , we will have an intelligence operator who will be more versatile,adaptable.and can confirm easily to all army requirements at the tactical level. Tactical intelligence formations can execute this tactical HUMINT asset (the operator) to satisfy commander’s requirements. Merging the capabilities of HUMINT and CI results in a task organization of skills for the Commander—definitely an improvement over either HUMINT or CI enabled operations. Tactical HUMINT operations are most suitable for developing and maintaining an excellent informant/source base who provide timely, specific and accurate information. Tactical HUMINT operations combine both HUMINT and CI techniques and together with linguist assistance , are more capable of developing and maintaining contacts than only HUMINT or CI ops.For example , the Tactical HUMINT team comes across few individuals of interest near the forward area , the HUMINT operators conduct tactical questioning to extract information of intelligence value and then pass them over to their CI colleagues for further interrogation if they discern any information of interest to the CI operators. This can be switched to and fro and the application of the combined faculties of both results in more refined, relevant and timely/accurate information. If the individuals are of the witting type or have voluntarily offered to deliver information or are community members sympathetic to the forces ,then they can be inducted into the source repository by establishing rapport/giving incentives etc and then later their assistance taken for more information. Tactical HUMINT teams can act as mobile interrogation teams at forward areas , quickly disposing off sources after tactical questioning and interrogations , thereafter detailing escort for those who may render more information or who ,it appears are suppressing tactical information , sending them to detention centers and collocated interrogation areas near forward areas or in the rear. The standard procedure of detaining and escorting to rear interrogation areas is hereby bypassed as in this procedure , the time taken to assess , detain , segregate , and transport to rear areas can negate the availability of timely intelligence—intelligence is highly perishable ,. Especially combat intelligence , where time is of essence.

Hence as the repository of sources grows , the quality and content of available information is enhanced and for the commander tactical intelligence , most of the time , is at his fingertips. Compare this to the situation where earlier , HUMINT or CI operations had to be complemented by intelligence from theater or national agencies , and it so happens they cannot provide real time , ground intelligence always for combatant commanders.

Here it should be stressed that intelligence nowadays is tactical—the focus should be at tactical level as soldiers fight wars nowadays more than battles. Small-wars in fact. Hence the dire need for actionable intelligence/tactical intelligence. Here the players are combatant commanders who must move swiftly in their maneuver and strike decisively. Higher echelons are there for planning , average intelligence support , but it is for the ground based Tactical humint teams to do most of the work. And they do it—as their composition is quite what the modern day warfare demands.

Future MOS Actions

The Army is at a crossroads with regard to its CI and HUMINT force. The catalyst is TAC HUMINT. The term "TAC HUMINT" refers to those operations planned and executed by Army tactical intelligence formations to satisfy requirements levied by their maneuver commanders. In today's force structure, TAC HUMINT is not a single MOS or set of skills. TAC HUMINT is the task organization of skill sets for a tactical commander.

* We should combine the HUMINT Collector functional area and the Counterintelligence Agent functional area to create a soldier who can be all the Army needs.

TAC HUMINT elements consist of CI agents, HUMINT operators, and linguists. These operations focus on developing contacts and informants who provide timely, relevant, and specific information to the combatant commanders. In most cases, the contacts and informants fill a void in the HUMINT continuum by providing excellent information relevant to the combatant commanders' CCIR that theater and national elements do not or cannot satisfy. The debate is over who the TAC HUMINT soldier is. The suggestions include the ideas that-

* Both skill sets must be able to merge capabilities to satisfy tactical requirements while maintaining a separate ability to work theater-and national-level requirements.

Training soldiers in this initial entry MOS would focus on conducting contact and informant operations, recognizing information of CI value, executing tactical questioning of civilians, and screening EPWs and detainees with the assistance of an interpreter. We must differentiate between HUM NT contact operations and CESO to ensure both receive adequate training.
Concurrently, the field units must ensure that they conduct both types of operations to satisfy the CCIR. Soldiers will have a choice of staying tactical with language training, moving to HUMINT operational assignments as Strategic Debriefers, or applying as Cl Agents. Soldiers would receive additional institutional training, such as the Basic Counterintelligence Agents Course, Strategic Debriefers Course, and language training. Assignments would be to either HUMINT Collector or Cl Agent domains.

A Warrant Officer can be included to conduct and technically control TAC HUMINT operations, interrogations, strategic debriefings, investigations, counterespionage operations, CI analysis and production, CI surveillance activities, and computer-network protection operations, as well as to perform CI technical services (such as polygraph). This is "being all you can be" or using today's slogan, creating a real "army of one."