As soon as we took our foot off the gas coming back off
ultimately withdrew from Iraq. Now, he was remarkably fast that
the Islamic State kind of Rose Up From the Ashes and it's a
cautionary tale. I think when you look at the
money that was best resources, allocated, but the intensity of
the campaign that we took against al Qaeda in Iraq.
As soon as you stop, those games are not Consolidated, but her
see what you're doing. Yes, be linked up much more
effectively with other arrests. Hi, welcome to the one.
See a podcast. My name is John Miguel.
Get your host for today's episode.
We're joined by dr. Nicholas.
Crowley who is a consultant and researcher.
He's the founder of front-line advisory and the author of the
death of the medi Army, the rise fall and Revival of Iraq's.
Most powerful militia, Nick specializes in first-hand
examination of localized, dynamics of conflict development
and urbanization in the developing World.
He's working whines strategic plans.
Local realities and equips Frontline.
Operational personnel with the skill sets and local insights
necessary for Success. Nick had previously served as a
social scientist with the human terrain system.
He also contributed to various NATO initiatives to integrate
social cultural information into military planning and
operational processes, and he was instrumental in designing
and delivering research, planning and collection,
training for the UK's defense, cultural specialist unit.
Nick has PhD and Ma degrees from King's College, London, and a ba
from Yale University. His book, The Death of the Mahdi
Army was excerpted in foreign affairs, reviewed, and Millie's.
Quarterly as quote, the best recent book on Iraq and
shortlisted by our USI, for the Duke of westminster's metal as
book of the year in the field of international relations and
Military studies. Dr. Nick Kroll.
We thank you for being the one. See a podcast and welcome.
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Now. You're calling from London.
And where you're currently residing.
And you've got your own firm. Where can people go to find out
more information about front lawn.
Yeah, if you look up front line advisory.com, there's a whole
overlay of business and what we do and how we do.
That's great. And where are you doing some of
your work now. So our work varies, we're doing
some work at Fort Bragg with CA around the concepts will talk
about today. We're also doing some very
similar work in Iraq, with the Iraqi government.
So we're looking to develop bilities along these lines.
Then there's a commercial side of the business and if you think
about the skill sets of human terrain analysis, the idea of
helping the military, go into an unfamiliar environment and make
sense of what's happening on the ground.
We do a version of that for Western companies going into the
Middle East and Africa, how do they take a local view of what
matters about the human terrain? The landscape around them
socially culturally dealing with things like labor issues,
security issues. Community relations.
That's perfect. That's great.
And so that's built on your background of working in that
area of operations that right. Yeah, so it's based around, you
know, personal experience in the Middle East and North Africa
principally. And also my work with the Army
was formative in terms of How we think about entering into
difficult environments. And the way we take a view on
what's Happening and what matters my time with human
terrain system. What was definitely a formative
experience? Just trying to go into an
environment like Iraq and figure out.
Where do we start to? Look?
What questions do we ask? How do we ask them?
And then how do we integrate those answers into a practical
decision making process? Right?
So, you know the the lessons I took from that early experience
back in. 2008 has shaped what I've done since then, you know
on the military side from a training standpoint and on the
commercial side providing advisory Services, that's
awesome. And so you've referred to some
of the questions that we're going to get into.
So want to tell listeners about the article that sparked the
interest in talking to you today.
It was published by the modern award stood at West Point that's
part of use month. It's entitled moving beyond,
post 9/11 Manhunt Translate. Tactical winds into strategic
success and it sounds to me very similar to what we're talking
about and see a community about Consulting gains.
You made some progress on influencing the human population
for the commander's intent and moving towards some of the lines
of effort and integrating civil information, for example, but
how that can be translated to a higher level for strategic
success? And I think that's the gist of
what you're talking about in this article.
Is that right? Yeah.
Immigration is key and all this and yo, you get on that right?
There. Is how do we get all these
different lines of effort joined up and the article looks at, you
know, some of the the issues we've had where we develop
extraordinary capabilities than the article itself.
Focuses on non-lethal targeting. We have this amazing capability,
but how well are we actually joining it up with the other
lines of efforts that have to compliment it so that we can
achieve a result. Yeah, so we'll talk about that.
That you talk about you, you argue that despite how the US
military has incredible efficiency in hunting and
killing enemy targets. The US government is just
failing to turn. These tactical winds into
strategic success. And you argue that lethal
targeting largely through drone strikes, is something that's
here to stay. And that's could just continue
to evolve as new technologies emerge.
One article stuck out to me that you wrote, quote, a growing
Reliance and lethal targeting as a core instrument of foreign
policy should be. Whirring, why is that the case?
Yeah, the short answer to that is because it hasn't worked in
terms of delivering a strategic result.
The legal targeting approach with you.
Talk about drones. We talk about direct action.
It's here to stay. I think.
Because, at first glance at least, it's a pretty good or
pretty appealing solution to a lot of the asymmetric threats
were looking at in the Middle East and Africa and elsewhere,
its low profile. It's an expensive.
Comparatively. And we can romanticize this idea
of sort of a surgical approach to counterterrorism, surgical
approach counter-narcotics, even aspects of stabilization, you
know, the problem is that you have to find a way to link it up
elsewhere. We look at this.
This idea that we can go in with Kinetic action, lethal action,
and Achieve certain effects and you look at how good we are
doing this and the technology and of all the people involved,
their incredible. There but think about the
theaters in which we've applied it.
You know, let's think about one where it's actually delivered a
result. That's commensurate to our
proficiency and you just don't see it.
And I don't see a break away from this as an element or a
core element of our approach. When you look at the frustration
and the disillusionment, the return on investment, we got
from all the development and capacity building work, done it
like Iraq and Afghanistan. Billions of Dollars spent to
very limited effect, you know, I was in Baghdad in September and
go around that City and challenge yourself to find the
legacy of serp spending. You know, how many billions of
dollars were spent. And you know, the lingering
effect of that are concrete tools.
It really wasn't as effective as it ought to have been and we can
look back to, well, the Vista didn't work and is expensive.
We want to do this anymore. You know, the US isn't in the
nation building. Us anymore and it's tempting or
is it's it's kind of sexy as well to fall back upon this
direct action approach. This legal targeting approach to
just surgically managing threats worldwide through Special
Operations, forces through drawers, drugs, Etc, but there's
there's danger in that because again, we haven't seen a result
from it. And there are some examples in
the article about, you know, instances in which, you know,
you just didn't deliver. And you know what, you wind up
doing? Yo, in the best case scenario.
It's just a never-ending whack-a-mole exercise where
you're disrupting that works like we did in Iraq during The
Surge and you're keeping the enemy off balance, but it works,
you know, you can have all kinds of unintended consequences,
civil Affairs is very much in the second and third order
effects business, right? And you can run these campaigns,
and I talked about Mexico in the article.
They read an incredibly efficient people targeting
campaign targeting, the cartels, which Monstrous unintended
consequences and we can talk about that a bit a bit later if
you want. I'm rich.
I'm thinking back to a book that I wrote a red called the mission
of Enemy by people over and he's a former Green Beret who wrote
about some of his experience in training and he talked about the
need to always have a guy or gal on the ground and despite the
drone strikes, that may have been called in.
He felt like you needed to have someone on the ground to confirm
or deny intelligence and to assist with the targeting.
But to get a sense of what enemy Have been like and whether the
local population is for or against you and you just can't
win things remotely all the time.
Right. What has been your experience
about having a guy or gal on the ground relating to the human
terrain team or the work that you're doing.
Now, what's the value added of that?
I think having that that human being on the ground.
He's absolutely essential and this is something that's a big
theme in the work that I do. And I was over at the Staff
College here in the UK yesterday, actually, talking
about this to a group. There.
There's a big push towards, you know, the technology station, I
guess to make up a word of analysis intelligence.
This idea that we can remotely understand what's happening to
these various sensors systems, remotely man, drones cetera, and
just going to keep our hands clean to a certain extent.
My point of view. Is that local?
I is absolutely essential and you need someone on the ground
to ask the right questions to look at what's happening to make
sense of why things are happening because, you know,
technology and the systems we have can give us, you know, the,
the All-Seeing Eye, you can have a built on coverage of all these
different things, but nothing in that whole system or that system
of systems enables us to make sense of it.
What does it mean? Yeah.
We see these things happening. We see troop movements, you
know, we have various data streams on Economic activity
instances of violence, Etc. What does it mean, you know the
technology in the rest and show us correlation, they can
identify patterns, but it can't explain any of it.
And the challenge is to have someone on the ground for with
access to people on the ground, to get into it.
Now, you know, that's the first step to my mind and, you know,
it's easy I think to not along to that if you think that way
where it gets difficult is executing and this is where I
remember reading the coin, manual back. 2007, where you can
read that and you can read the new CIA manual.
I found it to be a very similar document or you can read it and
agree and there's all these different, you know, assess this
understand that, you know, remain cognizant of this monitor
that these sort of statements of intent of things to do.
But how do you pivot from Theory to action?
You know, what do I do with you? I can sit there and think I have
you been trained as a decisive Terrain in the population has to
say Owner of gravity and all these great quotes.
But if I'm there, you know, in Yemen, on a Thursday afternoon,
what do I do with that? You know, that's a big place
where the humans rain system fell down, is that it didn't
have a systematic answer that question.
You know, what is the process? What is the method through which
you know, when were there on the ground?
We figure out what matters because you know, one of the
huge challenges of any human terrain, type Endeavor, or
silver reconnaissance, whatever you want to call these
variations the same. It is where you start.
If you think about a place like Yemen or even a city, I think of
a city like mosul in Iraq, this is something I talked with the
araki's about, yo, how do you go into that environment and figure
out what matters? All right, you know, how do you
go in and take a view of the fundamentals of the human
terrain? What are the different things?
We have to be aware of? How do they relate to different
objectives? How do they relate to the
campaign? The enemy?
There's so much going on. Knowing where to start to having
a process to follow. He's absolutely critical.
And that's been, you know, that was the biggest takeaway for me
for my time with the human terrain system is operational
terms. He said, we had to develop on
the fly a process and a method, our own system.
And then, you know, refining over time by doing this is
something that, you know, looking around, you know,
internationally Military Intelligence, law enforcement.
No, I'm not aware of any human terrain, tight capability.
That's really been satisfactory. That's really done.
What people wanted to do in the right way.
Yeah. And a big piece of that has been
the same underlying question of, where do we start?
And what questions were supposed to ask?
And how do we go from this? Huge broad view of a dynamic
environment? Where all these things happening
at once or we're connected in this theoretical concept that
all of this matters in this pivotal.
Now, what how do we actually Into tactical level action.
And that's the big Focus for me. And that's what's at the heart
of held up the conversations in the work.
We're doing to see a and with your, a keys as well.
And with a few other clients is establishing a process and a
method. So we can take all these ideas
and put them into action in a way to deliver his practical
results. Right?
So after the break, I want to get into this case studies that
you had about Iraq and Mexico, but before then you talk about
the human tree. Team and you served as a social
scientist working on that system in Iraq.
Right? Right, you talk a little bit
about why it didn't pick up. Why was the system shutdown?
And what do you think the Civil Affairs?
Regiment can learn from those ups and downs of that human
terrain system. Yeah.
There's a story kind of the rise and fall of him through a system
and there's been some pretty difficult but a lot of not very
good, very useful things written about it.
They were pretty political whatever you think of these
dies, and a lot of the commentary on.
It hasn't been that insightful. There are a few good things
written. There's a guy called Chris Simms
who wrote his Doctorate about it, which is published.
I think the US Army war College, that's out there online, but,
you know, the biggest takeaway for caa's point of view, you
know, if I were sitting in, you know, inside your organization
is a two-part, surf lesson learned one is that CA has all
too. Intellectual Firepower, it needs
to do this job. I've spent a good bit of time
with CA I spent in a number of years and human terrain system.
I work in corporate, second. Emia, all the rest, you know,
CIA has plenty of talent. They have all the people they
need all the resources. They need to do this job and
what they need. What about the key part of it is
what I was talking about earlier is to have process and to have
met because you have to find a way to Be reliable when you do
this work, and that's one of the big knocks on inventory analysis
as a discipline, no matter who's doing, whether it's the human
terrain system or its noise. J-2x type is that you'll you get
a lot of stuff. It's nice to know.
It's interesting, interesting, instead of the kiss of death
work right now. It's interesting.
But when someone says that if you typically means, what thanks
for telling me, but I have no idea what to do with.
That was really hard it time and time again, right?
Yeah. Thanks, okay.
Well not along to this for your 15-minute brief.
But yeah, I'm not going to read this again.
And you know, I may get back to my real work now and make
whatever decision I have to make.
That's been the real challenge for that discipline the whole
Endeavor of human terrain analysis.
How are you reliably relevant? And that's where, you know, what
the human terrain system couldn't quite do is to get all
that worked out in time. Lessons Learned From that
process is there's a body of knowledge to draw from interval
from what the British did in their own way.
And what, you know, in the New York Police Department, had an
effort, quite controversial to do something very interesting.
I don't lie Pretty illegal, but the other demographics unit is
the case study were looking at. And that's something we talked
about when we teach this stuff. This was an effort to use CCTV
undercover officers, you know, human sources.
To do a clandestine version of the human terrain system and a
map out areas of interest in the Muslim communities in New York.
Yeah, there's no all kinds of lessons to draw out from what's
been done before. And again that the key to it all
is to have structure and to have process so that you can be
reliable. And that's what I kind of drill
home whenever I talk about this stuff.
Yeah, and it sounds like you need to have a champion or
political cover for it as well. Otherwise, it's not cooked in
you. Yeah.
Human terrain system had a great story to tell in the right time
in the right place when counterinsurgency was on the
rise, and they tapped into that, or they were really a byproduct
of that and they were able to capitalize and, you know, there
was some great work done within that system.
But ultimately, first of all, it was expensive, very expensive
and you all listen, learn to Cas.
You don't need, you know, a whole bunch of expensive
Outsiders plugged into you. You know, human traces and spent
a lot of money on Tech. That really wasn't fit for
purpose. You know, I do most of my work,
you know, pen and paper. He'll your field notes.
You don't need fancy systems. If you have a thing like balance
here, by all means, use its great resource, but there have
been a lot of people, you know, spending a whole lot of money to
develop ways to make this Technology based Endeavor, and I
think that's the wrong direction as well.
Don't even listen to an interview.
With dr. Nick Carly when we come back,
we'll talk about case studies stuff that he's found in Iraq
and Mexico. And also asked some questions
about how to translate this into success for civil Affairs and
what he thinks about a scope and permissive will be right back.
If you haven't seen it yet, you're missing out.
The special Warfare magazine has dedicated an entire issue to the
Civil Fair Centennial. 2018 marked 100 years since the
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The first 100 by dr. Troy is a kitty.
It also includes transformation training a focus on governance
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Check out the article for Morgan K, titled shaping Authority, and
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Key Chief Warrant Officer. Three, Chris Ludwick and first
sergeant, Chris. Krez to access a PDF copy of the
special Warfare magazine dedicated to civil Affairs and
its Centennial. Go to the Civil Affairs
association website. It's civil Affairs associate
org. Welcome back to the once your
podcast. We're here with.
Dr. Nick Kroll e, he's the author of a paper titled moving
beyond the post 9/11 Manhunt translating tactical winds into
strategic success. Nick.
I wanted to ask you about the case study in Iraq first,
describe what you found in Iraq, and we talked about the paper.
The argument in the paper rolls what we did during the search as
a great insight into sort of the But also the limitations of this
lethal Target approach and set this up and I've got a bit of a
call it a dissenting view on what the surge was really all
about and to situate that. I spent the second half of the
search 2008 in East Baghdad, working on Maddie Army special
groups as a social scientist. So the whole hearts and Minds
non-lethal engagement side of counterinsurgency was squarely
my job. That's what we were supposed to
be doing. And there's a wider narrative,
that still gets a lot of play that, you know, what, we
achieved in the search, which is extraordinary, which was to
stabilize and effectively pacify Baghdad, over a two-year period.
Yeah. Clear.
Hold build. It was it was incredible thing
that was done and there's a general narrative out there and
it's sort of echoed again in the big studies just come out that
this was, you know, on the one hand there was a case of driven
targeting effort going after the networks that were behind.
Most of the violence. So Al Qaeda in Iraq, Maddie Army
special groups, but, you know, held up as an equal partner in.
This is the whole bottom up security development governance,
Outreach Brigade, combat teams for running out, you know into
the AO on the ground to the Grassroots element of this.
And you know from my point of view of someone who did the
Grassroots version of it. I never saw any evidence that
what we were doing was the driving force.
Find anything my view on through the non-lethal hearts and Minds
element of the surge. If it is stuff we did was able
to had was was possible because of the space created by legal
targeting and my view on our ability to stabilize and pacify
back. That is that that was
overwhelmingly the byproduct of lethal Target complemented by
just external factors of the fact that the, the she is sunny
Civil War has pretty much ended by then.
The sectarian fight was exciting and he's networks for vulnerable
and we went in and we went after them from the top down.
And people like me who were tasked to go house to house,
door-to-door neighborhood to Neighborhood talking to people
and trying to build up local Grassroots support to help
consolidate that achievement, you know, we made very little
Headway and the areas in which we work open from being very
dangerous and very violent in 2007, and there's a great book,
but no washing. Post journalist called the good
soldiers which is about the one of the battalion's that worked
the Far Eastern edge of Baghdad that captures, how difficult and
how tense that AO was in 2007. And then in 2008 suddenly he was
stable and it was peaceful. You can walk in these
neighborhoods. No problem.
And that was absolutely not the result of anything.
I was doing as social scientists winning hearts and Minds this is
because we have successfully gone after A fairly limited
networks that were behind most of the violence.
And, you know, when you talk about integrating the lethal and
non-lethal, you know, for a whole range of factors that are
beyond our conversation here. You mentioned the book.
And the book that I wrote about the mighty armies, the story of
all this of why this happened, why the naughty Army grows up
and fell down? And it kind of goes against, I
guess. A bit of what most people talk
about when they talk about search.
Yeah, but we were out there engaging People to very limited
effect. We really weren't able not
through counterinsurgency malpractice.
But because of what our Act was, and because of how Iraqi Society
had been kind of brutalized through the years and yelled any
of that. Well, before we are judged, we
weren't really able to Muster that local support and
consolidate those games. And so, you know, when the
search engine will be pulled out and a few years later jsoc, and
the various task forces have been operating out of the
airport. And I see they took their foot
off the gas and very rapidly. The remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq
reformed as the Islamic State and you see illegal targeting
approach can get you space and time.
It can disrupt a network but it's not going to take you much
beyond that. You're not going to destroy the
network and that way and you know that again, as soon as we
took our foot off the gas coming back off.
Ultimately withdrew from Iraq. Now, he was remarkably.
Fast that the Islamic State kind of Rose Up From the Ashes and
it's a cautionary tale. I think, when you look at the
money that we spend the resources, allocated the
intensity, the campaign that we took against al Qaeda in Iraq,
as soon as you stop, those gains are not Consolidated by virtue
of what you've been doing. Yes.
He's Linked UP much more effectively with other assets
and this is where that sort of a best-case scenario.
I think. Think for what people targeting
can do, it can buy you that space of time and it's an
incredible success, story of that discipline for what it
achieved. I think.
And I don't want to come off as though.
I'm trying to knock this as a discipline.
It's quite the opposite. It's very effective in doing
certain things. But we have to remain cognizant
of what the limits are in terms of what we can achieve.
And you know, that the Mexico example is all the more striking
where if you look at the drug war there.
From 2006 over the following 10 years or so the Mexicans ran a
you know, a Manhunt style targeting campaign and they took
down a hundred and seven of the top hundred and twenty-two
high-value targets that identified.
This is an incredibly effective campaign and you can call
talking about people like the Sinaloa cartel and I'll Chapo
like El Chapo in the rest. They had a Target set and they
went after them and US was involved in this to a certain.
Set. And that's not really a story
that's spelled out, sufficiently in the news.
But, yeah, you know, they'd write they were anise and pain
and it was enormously Successful by its own terms.
But what was the result? The result was a disaster where
you had disruption of these networks, not Consolidated in
any way by any follow action and creating just chaos, where you
had violence within these organizations.
When you do that, the head gets chopped off.
Different people fight to take over.
And as these organizations will destabilize, you had cartels
fighting each other over Turf. Because people know, they smell
vulnerability, they smell opportunity, right?
And the whole dynamic became exponentially more violent.
The murder rate shot up and everything got worse basically
based upon a very successfully executed targeted campaign.
They didn't really account for second and third order effects.
What comes next? How do we look down the road
done? And I'm not trying to show off
shoot the Mexicans. They haven't a staggering
Challenge on their hands, but for our purposes when you think
about, you know, hybrid Warfare and some of the literature.
And some of the thought on these have next Generation threats,
that are part Narco part, terrorist part, political apart,
legit economic part, social and media networks.
All rolled into one. There is a Hezbollah or Sinaloa
cartel. Looking at what the Mexicans did
and how poorly it went for the Mexican people.
Most of all, there's Lessons Learned in there in a huge way.
Yeah, particularly as you know, we start talking about
designating the cartels, as terrorist organizations, and
that's the precursor to unleashing Arctic are targeting
capabilities there. Yeah.
That's what that does Nation. Does listeners.
Want to check out a really cool? Fictionalized version of this,
the Netflix Narco series, is pretty amazing.
Yeah, pretty good. Things about that.
Yeah, it tells you about the rods in the fall and the
politics of it all and the economic stress, fascinating,
right? And that continues today and in
Mexico, and Colombia and many countries.
Yeah, and this is where, you know, the point, I guess us the
article is, you know, how does this all tie together and we
talk about lethal targeting. We talk about, you can train
analysis. I mean, on the face of it.
These are two very different things done, by entirely
different types of people. No, it entirely different
locations, physically. You know, how did these two
match up and the argument I take and the work that I do is based
on the premise that we have two disciplines here.
Both of which have tremendous importance, tremendous value,
tremendous potential, but their underperforming writer, I would
argue that, you know, for as good as we are, at least we'll
targeting at executing that process.
We should be getting more back from it, you know, we should see
a better result. And if you look at human terrain
analysis, lots of people can sit around and agrees.
It is stuff is important. We have to take a view of it.
But how many people out there or really satisfied with the
capability? They have.
And how many people are consistently going back to that
as a repository of information or as a key resource in the
decision-making process. And personally, I see that it
has two sides of the same coin. They on the targeting side.
We're having an issue. Not in the execution of a
process, but it in stead of the intelligence that feeds it.
And we talked about Network targeting, we talked about, you
know, things like palantir. And I to do you build these link
analysis, charts that represent the enemy gets the Taliban or
it's, you know, an element of Islamic State in eastern Syria.
And yeah, I use the metaphor of we view it like a cloud, like a
molecule and suspension and isolated to thing.
And, you know, people in the target Business go after that
Network. As they see it.
As that kind of cloud, that's detached from the landscape and
they attack in various ways. And the problem for my point of
view is that we're missing a huge piece of what this network
is, you know, the, the Taliban is not some distinct entity,
that kind of floats above Eastern Afghanistan.
It is a part of the human terrain that that cloud, he's in
the cloud, any of the Comparison raised.
And then the article is I think of it more like a tree where you
have these branches and Limbs and that's the network that you
see in your current, like analysis chart.
Yeah, but there's also this massive root structure sinking
down into Afghan society and that's missing from the target
that's missing entirely from the entire Viewpoint that underpins
our legal targeting process. Yeah, David combines real, a lot
about it about being an organism.
So if you cut out, probably that organism It's going to have to
adapt and they'll be something else to fill that void or you
have to see how it's all connected.
Exactly. And to kind of get in that
Desert, from Theory to action is I personally think that you
know, the analytical processes of targeting are a great place
to any group that Viewpoint. So rather than viewing this
cloud or this molecule for our wiring diagrams.
We have to take a view, not just of the network itself, but of
that root structure, Within the darting process to look at how
the whole thing connects into the, the soil into the human
terrain and this is where human terrain analysis fits in.
And, you know, the big knock we've talked about is the need
for structure. They need for Focus.
Where do you start? If you have the human terrain
analysis mandate in eastern Syria.
What are you looking at? There's no thousands of ways to
begin an inquiry and Yes, sir. I think are the way forward to
do. This is to structure it around
that view of an enemy Network. So, we have that that molecule
and we map these roots sinking down into the human terrain.
And we understand these relationships when where why,
and how this network has established.
This particular relationship to a particular Community, a
particular tribe particular element of the political
economy. That's a structured
investigation into something that matters.
It's absolutely Going to matter is absolutely going to be
operationally relevant and we look to conduct human train
analysis is now with growth has that.
So this network has established, this local relationship.
Well y-you know what? Is it about?
The local economy? What is the about local Society?
Are there cultural factors involved here?
Are there, you know, what exactly is happening that enable
that relationship to be and that is your guideline.
That's the the channel. You can follow to conduct human
terrain analysis that Fit together in a way where I think
both are better for local place. Well, Nick, I wanted to ask you
this final question here about how we move ahead.
All right, so you provided some answers, but for the Civil
Affairs Community, for example, you describe a scope and khamisi
Frameworks as fill in the blank and that we need a road map to
quick guide. Exploration.
Not in a local boxes to tick show.
How would the Civil Affairs, community?
And you're working with some of them.
Now, how would you suggest that they move ahead?
To develop more of that context, and anticipating the second and
third order effects. Yeah, somebody to go back into
the question a bit Hasty. Open.
Tracy, I think work as a way to present information by we have
these boxes. We have these categories.
If I know a lot about Rocco and I'm being asked as the human
terrain guy or the as a CIA officer to feed into the
military decision making process for a particular operation know
that that grid Is a perfectly useful, way of plotting out.
Here's what we know. Here's what's going on.
It's all neatly boxed up and you can look where you need to look
and get quick answers. So as a presentation tool, I
think it's a perfectly good one. The problem I have is that if I
go to raqqa, and I don't know what's going on and I'm trying
to collect information and investigate.
I don't think it's a particularly good framework to
explore and to get at answers. Because you do wind up with sort
of boxes to fill in and it's sort of a reductionist approach
to figuring out what matters where you have this complex
system of systems operating and you're told to go find area,
structures, Etc. Once a political.
What's military, Etc. You're breaking things down into
pieces Without Really knowing what's going on here.
How does it connect? What is important and why?
So what I think the The Way Forward is to keep a scope.
Keep may see as I get a reliable perfectly functional way to
input information into the military decision, process into
the strategic planning process, but to get to that depth
information, there's a need for different processes, different
methods, looking at the CIA manual, there are guidance by
saying, effectively understand this assess this, and, you know,
that the methodology be He's starting to assess, you know, go
out and figure this out how that fit missing pivot.
I think is the step between Theory and appreciate the
importance of all this and acting on it through practical
steps. And what I think is the way
forward is to implement these steps.
So here's how we go through this process.
Here are the kinds of questions we ask and when you look to kind
of narrow the view of human terrain analysis or The network
engagement. And when you look to narrow the
view of how do we conduct civil reconnaissance with particular
objectives in mind, you know, for me, it comes back to using
the targeting process and our view of a particular enemy as
that anchor, and building out steps and layers of analysis
from there. That, I think offers a clear
structured way to start someplace, where we're
comfortable, where we know how to understand, we know how to
analyze. We don't we Looking for mapping
out. What a particular enemy network
is and we gradually build out from there by looking at the
shape of this network. How its structured, why it's
structured a certain way. That's going to tell us certain
things about its its connectivity.
It is a local environment. Then we look at that root
structure. How has the Islamic State
developed particular relationships, you know, in and
around mosul in around raqqa. What does that look like?
And then from there, you're developing not boxes to fill in.
But lines of inquiry where we have certain Dynamic, certain
indicators. We know are important and we're
going to empower people with the skill set and a process to go
investigate them. Right?
And it is something where y'all from the very beginning of my
work with the military. Yeah, II time.
And time again, find this sort of frustrating experience of
there, being a lot of intellectual creativity, a lot
of brain power. But systems and processes that
don't really Empower soldiers officers to go and use that.
And it doesn't harness the talent that's out there as
effectively as it could. And, you know, I'd love to see a
road map, but a process and a method that equip see a
Personnel in a deployed environment to really be
investigators and to have again, if you're anchored in that
process and in that method, right?
You can take on that. That intellectual creativity.
You can really investigate not with your, a scopa me, see
chart. But, you know, with kind of the
mindset somewhere between an intelligence officer and, you
know, an anthropologists sociologists type, but you're
really digging into things and exploring in a way that, you
know, from the very beginning. He's going to give you the
results that matter because of the questions you're asked,
right? Because the lines of inquiry
raft. Well, Nick, I think you lay down
a challenge here. I think this is a really good
chance. Is that I think the same
Community can rise to dr. Nicholas curly, great and waited
up man. You've been there, you've done
that and I think I hope the people listen to what you have
to say here. Yeah, this is great.
Dr. Nicholas Corley, consulted researcher founder of for on
advisory and author of death of the muddy Army, sir.
Thank you very much for being the once a podcast.
Thank you all of us. Take care.
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come back for another installment of 1ca, until then.
Be safe and secure the victory.