Information-gathering in Afghanistan

It is astounding to know that eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the military is not getting the right intelligence it needs to prosecute the war effectively. That’s the claim of a new study published by the Center for a New American Security. According to the authors, in this article published by the Washington Post, the U.S. intelligence community has been providing information that “is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy," focusing on IEDs and digging dirt of insurgents. One of the co-authors, Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn “in a scathing critique of the quality of information at his disposal,” has argued that what the military needs is to understand local politics, economics, religion, and culture that drive the insurgency.

And so the military has launched a new approach to intelligence-gathering in Afghanistan, one that involves sending analysts out in the field to describe in detailed narratives the local conditions in key districts of Afghanistan.

I hope it is not too late to do this as military operations are already underway. For how could fighting and intelligence-gathering take place at the same time, and yet be effective? Anyway, about five years ago, I drafted a research proposal on the importance of co-opting communities in the war against terror through technological tools with which to build quick, spontaneous, and virtual network of support among community members (alas, I did not get a hearing). I thought that villages should be made focal points of global security policy as it is there where terrorist plots are being hatched. The dynamics at the village level have been overlooked, and yet it is there where terrorists seek haven. Reaching out to village folks, engaging them in conversations, asking them about their life experiences as they go about the business of living despite threats to their lives and property, would probably have given us the right information from the very beginning out of which we could have devised an effective strategy.

Meanwhile, one of the military analysts who is taking part in this intelligence-gathering mission wonders how the new information can change the equation of things: "My biggest question is, once they get the new data . . . how are they going to use that information to really change the situation here?"

Well, perhaps with the new information, the military would at least begin to understand what that Afghan, who was interviewed for this article, had in mind when he said: “We’re afraid of the Taliban, and we’re afraid of the Marines.”