Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin - Federation of American ...

for both collection and analysis, as their organic intelligence
structure is often inadequate.” –FM 3-24
Counterinsurgency, 3-5
To most effectively gather and analyze intelligence,
the collector and analyst must become intimately
familiar with the area in which they operate.
Outside intelligence organizations provide products
and analysis that are very useful, particularly for the
objectivism that certain types of collection can give.
But the primary source of what happens on a dayto-day
basis has to come from those who live in the
area and interact with the populace. 4 The analyst
from afar can never fully appreciate the situation
on the ground, and subsequently his products most
often lack a focus that the supported unit is driving
at. The same is true of the collector from afar and
the collector who comes to visit only occasionally.
This “visiting collector” is the HCT. As previously
mentioned it comes to support when it has source
meetings in companies’ AOs. The HCT will of course
do its best to respond to any priority intelligence
requirements (PIRs) of the company, but this is difficult
since most company commanders have not
been taught to create their own PIRs. Thus, commanders
are constantly pinging the battalion S2
shop for HUMINT support until they are fed up with
the irregularity.
If the HUMINTers are not local, then they never
learn the mētis they require to be fully successful.
That is, they never completely gain the local
knowledge that is comprised of “a wide array
of practical skills and acquired intelligence in responding
to a constantly changing natural and human
environment.” 5 If the HUMINTer lives with the
company and constantly goes on patrols to spot and
assess when not in source meetings, then his local
knowledge is that of the company, and there is
no loss between the collector and the customer due
to misunderstanding. Furthermore, by developing
mētis, the HUMINTer is a better collector; he understands
the rationality behind the actions of those he
aims to influence by living in their context and is also
less susceptible to be taken in by false reporting.
That is not to say HUMINTers do not go out on patrols
with companies when they are placed at the
battalion level. From time to time the HCT visits to
go on missions with the company to see the AO and
spot and assess. The argument however, is that in
the most common configuration (the HCT as a bat-
talion level collection asset), the access that the HCT
has to every company’s AO is limited and generally
is restricted to either whichever AO has more reporting,
or whichever company commander is easier to
work with. For the most part, the HCT is just another
enabler that the commander is trying to juggle
and coordinate for, just another visitor to his AO.
As a visitor, the HUMINTer is only left with his
techne, his understanding of his craft as a science,
and lacks contextual insight. An HCT armed with
its craft is powerful, but it is not COIN. COIN is local,
and therefore intelligence collection must be as
well.
The HUMINTers are Part of the CoIST
“HUMINT collectors may have to be placed in DS of
lower echelon combat maneuver forces (battalion
and lower) to support operations. HUMINT and combat
reporting by units in direct contact with threat
forces and local inhabitants becomes the means of
collection.” –FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector
Operations, 3-16
HUMINTers need to be at the company level.
Clearly, for MOS-specific training, this is impractical,
but for operations it is necessary. The CoIST is,
in effect, the S2 shop for the company; it empowers
the company commander with a staff for information
management and intelligence analysis. The CoIST
pre-briefs and de-briefs patrols; analyzes combat information
to create a company level enemy situation
template; develops threat courses of action; targets,
both lethally and non-lethally, at the company
level; serves as a company link to the battalion S2;
and recommends ISR requests and develops recommended
PIR for the company commander.
The HUMINTer is a natural extension of this concept,
as he is capable of providing much more benefit
than just Military Source Operations (MSO). The
35M works in concert with the company commander
and the CoIST team leader to better focus his collection.
He reviews every patrol de-brief to expand his
knowledge of the AO and to identify future sources
of collection. He helps plan the company’s missions,
sometimes planned around the HUMINTers’ source
meetings. He also runs the company commander’s
informant network; every company commander has
informants, and these are often mishandled when
the commander tries to illegally task them as if they
were sources. The HUMINTer keeps the commander
‘legal’ by managing who is worthy of being a source
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