Chapter 1
Introduction to Military Intelligence and Planning

Good military intelligence is integral to planning. Military intelligence represents the epitome of attempts to fulfill Sun Tzu's admonition to know the enemy and know yourself in order to assure victory in battle.1 While "knowing" is an important aspect, the key distinguishing feature of intelligence is that it is predictive in nature.2 Intelligence provides insights into knowing what the enemy can do and how it can harm or impede friendly forces; knowing the enemy's objectives and values; and knowing relative strengths and weaknesses between two (or more) opposing sides. These things are necessary to forecast what the enemy might do whether as the initiator of a conflict to achieve their objectives or as a response to some action. From these strengths, weaknesses, and forecasts, analysts can identify those targets that will have the biggest impact upon the enemy. Intelligence reduces uncertainty about what to attack and protect. Once these forecasts are made, the collection enterprise serves the same purpose as Sun Tzu's spies: to understand the adversary's intent and monitor indications to judge the accuracy of the forecasts of enemy behavior as well as the impacts of friendly operations.

This book is an exploration of the methods used to conduct intelligence at the operational level of war. In a sense, it is a book on military intelligence research methods. It provides a way of seeing, a way of thinking. It is a narrow theory of knowledge of intelligence craft at the operational level of war. It leverages a variety of academic theories to improve intelligence analysis. It is a search for the ability to understand world events, forecast the future, understand the capabilities and limitations of collection assets, and communicate these ideas to a decision-maker. This book is designed for every joint planner and analyst, particularly for those new to working at the level of a joint task force, component command, or combatant command. It will also be useful to those that work at the tactical level but have a strategic impact particularly air, maritime, cyber, space, and special operations. It will be extremely useful to the junior officer or enlisted, particularly for their transition to their first job as a planner, analyst, or collection manager. This book will also improve the insights of wargame designers, military hobbyists, armchair generals, and war correspondents. Finally, it is a good refresher for the seasoned planner or analyst to help them think from a multi-domain perspective.

This book focuses on planning and intelligence support to planning. It resides at the intersection of intelligence studies, strategic studies, war studies, defense studies, and military studies. The core of this book drives towards learning how to create a forecast: how a military force might be used to resolve a particular crisis. Forecasting, also known as anticipatory intelligence, is the analyst's primary contribution to operational success. Forecasting provides warning, informs targeting, and is integral to assessing a campaign's progress. Forecasting creates better plans. Planning, while imperfect, leads to more effective and efficient operations.

The remainder of this chapter explains the concept of operational intelligence, what planners and decision-makers want from it, and the structure of how the book is going to teach the reader how to succeed at conducting or using operational intelligence.

A Conceptual Definition of Operational Intelligence3

At the 2022 International Studies Association annual conference, after David Strachan-Morris presented his paper "Not an Oxymoron: Developing Theory on Military Intelligence," several national intelligence academic-practitioners argued that operational military intelligence requirements are irrelevant; that military operations could survive off strategic intelligence. The implication was that scraps from the strategic table should be sufficient to feed the dogs of war. While this might be conceptually possible, in practice the requirements for intelligence at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels are interrelated and inform each other, but each is distinct.

Conceptualizing the different types of intelligence can be viewed from the customer's perspectives. For all customers, intelligence is "the mainly secret activities - targeting, collection, analysis, dissemination and action - intended to enhance security and/or maintain power relative to competitors by forewarning of threats and opportunities."4 The purpose of intelligence is to use information to reduce uncertainty for a decision maker.5 While it seems straightforward, there is a plethora of decision-makers and decisions to make.

For any junior officer at the tactical level, the difference becomes readily apparent after requesting analytical assistance from a higher headquarters. While the response might be professional and courteous, the products provided are often not useful to the tactical unit. The problem is not a lack of caring. The headquarters has an entirely different frame of reference based upon the decisions that their commander needs to make. The intelligence is related but at a different level of detail and a different emphasis (see Figure 1.1). Intelligence must be tailored to the customer's requirements making it difficult for great products at one level of war to be equally useful at the other levels of war.

Figure 1.1 Relationships between types of intelligence requirements.

SOURCE: Adapted from David Strachan-Morris 2024.6

Strategic warning is primarily concerned with forecasting the probability that an attack will occur and whether that attack might be nuclear, conventional, or unconventional.7 National-strategic intelligence informs decisions and recommendations for policy and national security strategy at the department (or ministry) level and above.8 These drive policy decisions regard level of involvement (if any), response options, and spending priorities. Defense intelligence informs military procurement and resource allocation decisions between services and commands.9 While national-strategic and defense intelligence are critical to enable forces to prepare, they are insufficient to improve the odds of a successful battle. Operational analysis forecasts how that attack might occur - an alignment of intent, capabilities, and feasibility. Tactical intelligence is primarily concerned with near-real time locating, positively identifying, and tracking enemy forces to support the units that execute missions. Over time, analysts can see patterns from training and combat employment enabling the ability to forecast how the enemy will act during future engagements.10 To an extent, tactical intelligence forecasts the best way to engage and defeat an adversary unit. While tactical intelligence is essential, militaries that focus most of their effort on it can overlook critical operational cues. For example, during World War II, the German focus on tactical movements left them with poor operational insight.11 As early as 1918 and developed through the 1940s, the United States recognized the importance of forecasting.12 Despite these lessons, after two decades of focusing on the tactical movements of terrorists, the US ability to conduct operational analysis atrophied.13

Operational intelligence is for military headquarters: joint task force, component commands (i.e., air, land, space, maritime, cyber, special operations), and combatant commands.14 Operational intelligence is the activities that forecast threats and opportunities to reduce a decision maker's risk towards achieving military objectives. Operational intelligence is a different type of forecasting than strategic or tactical forecasting. Operational intelligence informs decision-makers about what to do with assigned forces and when to request additional forces. First, "what is the enemy going to do with all those tactical units and platforms?" Threat forecasts are a necessary prerequisite to developing an effective and efficient collection plan, targeting plan, and operational scheme of maneuver. An accurate forecast highlights things that need to be protected and methods to disrupt the enemy's intended actions. Second, is targeting. Targeting is a forecast of the impact of degrading, destroying, or affecting something. It is a forecast of the impact on future capability, intent, and behavior. For example, a target analyst may recommend destroying a certain bridge, forecasting that it will delay enemy armor units from crossing a key river for 24 hours as they wait for repairs or maneuver toward an alternate route. Or, an analyst might project that destruction of a certain uranium centrifuge factory would delay development of a nuclear weapon for six months.15 Third, over time it is important for operational intelligence to track the accuracy of its forecast through regular assessments. Collection plans are used to confirm, refute, and test operational planning assumptions about both friendly and adversary actions.

Requirements for Operational Intelligence

While some will argue that the United States and NATO are adept at operational intelligence, recent evidence suggests otherwise. Predictions of how the Russian invasion of Ukraine would play out were horribly inaccurate. Predictions of what a China invasion of Taiwan might look like are ambiguous...