By Geoff Fein
Being able to bring in intelligence data and manipulate it and do it in an interconnected globally collaborative environment without having to hand type information in is vital to the war on terrorism, according to a Navy official.
Industry is helping to develop some of these tools, but even with the best intentions in mind, companies are often creating systems that will never be fully used, Rear Adm. Tony Cothron, director of Naval Intelligence, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
“Some of the companies are doing tremendous things and sometimes companies create, what I would say is overkill, because they are creating something with the best of intent, but it is thousands of times more powerful and I won’t get to all that other stuff,” he said. “And it’s a distraction and it’s not integrated into my other tools and applications.”
As an all-source analyst, Cothron said he wants to be able to bring in all the data, manipulate and look at it, particularly with something simple like a Google [GOOG] Earth application.
“If I can show dots popping up or can look at [data] in a time line and convert back and forth, and I can do all that without having to hand type things in, [that’s] great,” he said.
He also wants to do that with an interconnected globally collaborative environment.
“One of the worst things we have today is Microsoft Office, because every analyst can create his own little database. That’s great if you have a small problem, but if you are trying to analyze global terrorism, you’ve got to be connected to the global community that is looking at terrorism because terrorists pop up all over the place,” Cothron added. “So your one little database, if you are trying to hand [type] every piece of data, you’ll never get there.”
In today’s global world, the organizing principle is global connected analysis, and that is Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell’s fundamental imperative, Cothron said.
“[What] he’s trying to work through is collaboration across the community, and that doesn’t just mean talk to each other, it means really embed our processes so those databases are being shared more,” he added.
The change in technology has been dramatic, Cothron said.
“We are constantly chasing that…to master the technology and not let the technology master us,” he said. “Constantly I find myself going back to fundamentals of analysis and trade craft. Our young analysts have to master that and master the tools.”
Naval Intelligence is about to recreate an operational intelligence course they had 20 years ago in the days of the Ocean Surveillance Information System, Cothron added. “We stopped that in the ’90s but we are going to recreate it in order to support the needs of Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA).”
The course will have two thrusts–the thrust of understanding the technology and tools that are available today, Cothron said. Those tools and technologies have become much more sophisticated, providing much greater ability to reach in and pull out data from National Security Agency (NSA) databases, for example, and lay that out on Google Earth to visualize things, he added.
“So we will emphasize understanding those tools. But we are also going to emphasize understanding of the fundamentals of collection analysis and the art of dissemination,” Cothron said. “That’s not just writing an article, that’s the art of presentation, the art of really getting commanders’ and policymakers’ attentions…what’s important, what’s relevant and how to make that predictive.”
Intelligence professionals don’t get paid for understanding the past, he noted. “We earn our money by predicting the future. You have to understand the past to have any chance to predict the future well, but our purpose is…is the enemy going to break right or break left, is he coming from my bow or my stern and what will be his characteristics and how will he operate? That’s what we are paid to do.”
It’s about continuously driving the collection of data, analyzing that data and putting all those pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together, Cothron said.
“And usually not getting all the pieces that we’d really like, and then having to make those estimates. Like the weather guys, you are going to miss some of those. We constantly tell our [young analysts], ‘tell the commander what you know, what you don’t know, but we have an obligation to tell him what we think,'” he added.
Naval Intelligence is focused on an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) strategy that looks at and incorporates ISR from not just airborne platforms, but surface, subsurface, space-based and ground-based systems, Cothron said.
“And we look at the other services. What we can expect as a realistic contribution in a major fight or day-to-day, and then we look at the foundation of all those platforms…the analysis, the tools, the techniques, and the trade crafts and the bandwidth to get results from all those sensors and capabilities. Fuse it and provide results, understanding, and knowledge, to commanders and policy makers,” he said.
“So our strategy is to buy the slice of that, that the Navy needs to support combatant commanders’ requirements for MDA, conduct the Navy’s maritime missions, and to buy that, that only the Navy can uniquely provide,” Cothron said. “Because in some areas we have abilities, that no other service has a similar capability, to gain access, collect intelligence, and provide it to supportive commanders.”