 joint MI architecture as well. Another equally important example is the extraordinary time and effort required to develop what then Major Ralph Peters coined urban intelligenceinformation ferreted from the domain of Mogadishu, Port-au- Prince, Tuzla, and Sarajevo.4
HUMINT is Paramount
Existing and emerging peace operations doctrine notes the importance of human intelligence (HUMINT) to varying degrees, but does not assign to it the overwhelming importance that commanders and J2s continue to learn from one operation to another.5 This is perhaps the easiest imperative to understand but possibly the most difficult to implement because it counters technology-based, DESERT STORM-influenced joint operations. Successive peace operations clearly reflect the necessity to establish a full-spectrum HUMINT network throughout the operational area and the reality that poor HUMINT simultaneously risks overall mission failure and protection of the peace force itself. Repeatedly peace operations commanders and J2s have reiterated that HUMINT was their most important intelligence resource.
The purpose here is not to recommend any specific application of a complex intelligence-col- lection effort but rather to point out directly that several common shortfalls occur in HUMINT support to peace operations. The first is that MI planners, especially during the early planning stages, can easily equate HUMINT, to the products of the MI organizations capable of producing it (interrogators, counterintelligence (CI) teams, and long-range surveillance units). More than one peace-operations J2 has at least initially planned and organized so-called HUMINT operations in those terms alone. In an era where we commonly equate sensors to systems organic in MI organizations, remember that every individual soldier, sailor, airman, and civilian in the mission area is an information provider and potential HUMINT collector.6
CI teams are essentially force protection assets, highly skilled individuals trained to look inward through the lens of an adversary. We train interrogator teams to elicit HUMINT from persons and documents that have come under friendly control but who also introduce some question in terms of credibility and reliability.
Together, CI and interrogator teams do provide critical HUMINT functions, but we can and must complement their limited capabilities with the eyes and ears of non-MI personnel throughout the peace force. Both Somalia and Haiti taught us that lesson, and Bosnia is reiterating it with even greater effect as MI and non-MI personnel alike rediscover the fundamentals of human reconnaissance, surveillance, and liaison.7
Peace operations both facilitate and require the broad application and management of human collectors to collect the many fragments of localized, low-level, but often factual information that technology-based sensors can neither find nor process in such highly charged situational dynamics. Infantry soldiers, engineers, civil affairs teams, drivers, aircrew members, special operations teams, medical personnel, and staff members conducting liaison are all valid information collectors. MI must help them see themselves as such, trained to observe and report, and constantly educated about what information is important within the context of the military and political environment.
The commander must instill this sense of purpose, and the J2 must establish a network in which it can operate. That network would provide a mechanism for disseminating collection requirements to the lowest observer levels and reporting observations upward to the level where a single report may serve as the critically needed information that guides an important military or political decision. It must contain appropriate filters to place informational needs in the proper local context and direct them to the right collectors. It must then similarly ensure the validation of the collected information and its placement in the correct context as it moves upward. The network must have the ability to function in the native language, a reality that we consistently relearn in the face of severely underestimated interpreter requirements.8
Technology remains a force multiplier in peace operations, but is more limited than in conventional combat operations
Commanders and J2s must quickly make critical decisions (particularly in the early operational stages) on the placement of reliable, mission-educated interpreters and constantly review these decisions as language capabilities develop and the number of interpreters expands.
This is an enormous effort for which modern commanders and intelligence officers are largely unprepared. It is an effort that requires the re-development of World War II-vintage reconnaissance, surveillance, and liaison skills; the assembly and understanding of thousands of small pieces of diverse information; and the personal manipulation of a broad, human-based network. This is a network where automation can help organize and collate informationbut can rarely interpret its meaning.
Finally, commanders and J2s must recognize that beyond the roles of MI-trained teams, there are HUMINT assets trained to perform the classic role of developing and managing intelligence sources within the belligerent parties. Whether from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or the Defense HUMINT Service (DHS), these individuals have critical roles to play in operations where ambiguity abounds. These assets are unlikely to be directly available to the military. Commanders and J2s should, however, make their operational-level HUMINT requirements and the scope and products of their internal HUMINT efforts known through their supporting National Intelligence Support Team (NIST). This coordination enables the tactical, operational, and strategic HUMINT actions to support each other.9 This is particularly critical in an environment where HUMINT developed at a low level can have very pronounced operational and strategic impacts.
Judicious Use of Technology
Our high-technology systems include national and theater optical and synthetic aperture radar imagery systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, multimode signals intelli- gence platforms, and the sophisticated processors and information fusion systems that they feed. Technology remains a force multiplier in peace operations, but is more limited than in conventional combat operations.
The design of technology-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems permits us to map out quickly a conventional, standardized threat for which the visible nature of its formations and orientations leads us to presume its capabilities and intentions. Their use against a small number of mortars or artillery pieces hidden in the debris of Bosnias urban areas or its rugged terrain is certainly limited.
This is not to say that we should not plan for or use high-technology systems in peace operations. We should use them. They provide a significant advantage when we can closely match their capabilities to specific information requirements.
Imagery can be similarly effective to update or refine information...required for political negotiation and military enforcement.
Commanders and J2s must understand how the environment governs their capabilities and limitations. The Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS), for example, proved useful in Bosnia under conditions that limited its application more than we originally expected. Its introduction to the JOINT ENDEAVOR area of operations was accompanied by DESERT STORM-induced pros- pects for success that were immediately limited by the severity of Bosnian terrain and the radar shadowing it introduces. The Bosnia environment does not have the long convoy lines and massed formations of the Iraqi Republican Guard.
Joint STARS successes have been in monitoring the evacuation of belligerent forces from the ZOS where formations of equipment were in assembly areas at known points and time and departed in an organized fashion.10 Elsewhere the system has been more difficult to apply because of typically small force movements, the inevitable mixing of belligerent military equipment with civilian traffic, the concentration of belligerents equipment in and around the urban areas, or the simple lack of movement at all.
Imagery systems have proven similarly useful and limited. Imagery can be used with great effect to verify compliance of troop and equipment withdrawals around the ZOS, the integrity of equipment holding areas, and general conditions in areas of interest.11 Imagery in support of peace operations is best applied to surveil areas where some known condition has been established and from which changes can be measured. Where it has proven least successful is in the general search mode where the same limits described above for Joint STARS commonly prevail. Imagery can be similarly effective to update or refine mapping and geodesy information in areas where precision geography is required for political negotiation and military enforcement but is lacking.
High-capacity information pro- cessors and analysis tools are limited. This is principally because the bulk of information that MI personnel must analyze (predominantly HUMINT) needs to be put in a non-technical context (characterization of intent) that does not easily lend itself to machine-formatted reports or their terse data fields. By design, the sensor-processor combinations upon which we build joint intelligence architectures and the associated tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) will quickly and accurately find visible crucial threat entities and, from those, develop targets.
The intelligence architecture must be robust, flexible, and governed as much as possible by the principles of interoperability and commonality
Those capabilities to acquire, collate, and correlate information should be applicable in peace operations but with the clear under- standing that their inherently target-focused processes and products need tempering in a human judgment framework that mechanical systems cannot provide. J2s have consistently discovered that intelligence architectures must be modified (and soldiers trained) to incorporate assessment of both a political and military context with every analysis, adding a very important human dimension to powerful, but limited, technology-based systems.12
Simplify the Architecture
The intelligence architecture must be robust, flexible, and governed as much as possible by the principles of interoperability and commonality. However, it is important we understand and plan for several realities. The architecture of the U.S. peace forces will usually dominate those of our allies in terms of capabilities (particularly sophisticated sensors, processors, automated analysis tools, and supporting dissemination systems) and we must share the resulting data with them.13 It should be able to accommodate inputs from them, understanding that they can bring intelligence talents, perspectives, and capabilities to complement our own capabilities. This has